


Too Heavy For Me

by daniomalley



Series: Salvage [3]
Category: Bandom
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Drug Abuse, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Permanent Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-03-30 08:57:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3930790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daniomalley/pseuds/daniomalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikey has been the one bright spot in Pete's life ever since they met a year ago. But Pete's always been an expert at making things worse for himself, and that's not about to change now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Some Good, To Someone in the World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/951293) by [Alex51324](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex51324/pseuds/Alex51324). 



> This fic is part of the Salvage series, which takes place in the world of [Alex51324](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex51324/pseuds/Alex51324)'s [Finding Home](http://archiveofourown.org/series/55517) AU. I want to thank Alex for allowing me to use this universe. This fic will probably make more sense if you read the Finding Home trilogy first - it's awesome! You won't regret it!
> 
> I also owe a huge thanks to [littlerhymes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes), who betaed and prodded and encouraged me through the process of writing this fic for _an entire year_. That deserves some kind of award!  <333
> 
> This fic is complete in six parts plus a prologue, and will be updated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

There were times when Pete got things _right_. Times when he didn’t forget anything, wasn’t late, didn’t fuck up at work. Times when he wasn’t annoying, didn’t get in the way, and was where he needed to be. Most days weren’t good days, but this one was.

They closed a case. Their supervisor had actually smiled at them, and said, “Nice work, Lowery!” to Trent, which didn’t exactly happen everyday. Trent was in a great mood as a result, making jokes and smiling at Pete when he laughed at them.

Traffic wasn’t too awful on the way home, and they arrived earlier than usual. Pete had really been trying to keep the house in decent shape, and so far he’d been doing okay. He’d already made a casserole for dinner which only needed reheating, and that gave him a chance to dust everything in the main rooms. Dust really bothered Trent.

Pete set the kitchen table and dished up the meal. Trent came out of the study when he smelled the rolls Pete had warmed up in the oven, and smiled when he saw dinner laid out on the table.

“Did you get the butter out of the fridge?” Trent asked once he’d sat down, and Pete’s smile faltered.

“Sh- uh, no. No, I forgot.” Pete grabbed the butter out, but it was too late now. It would still be hard. “Sorry. I forgot,” he repeated.

Trent sighed and scraped a little butter onto his knife. “Forget your own head if it wasn’t screwed on,” he said fondly. “What would you do without me?”

Trent laughed, and Pete laughed too. Of course he laughed. It was funny. It was a funny joke. “I have no idea,” Pete said.

It was a good day.

***

The thing was, Trent had seemed like the best option at the time. Pete had been in the Navy for two miserable years, and the prospect of another four before he could even request discharge was too much for him. And just when he needed him, Trent had been there, twice Pete’s age and gearing up to leave the military and pursue a nice, quiet civilian career.

Even then, Pete had known that there were better Sentinels out there than Trent. He was picky and short tempered and couldn’t accept criticism from anyone. He wasn’t all bad – there were moments where he could be thoughtful and patient. There had been more of them, back then. Pete had weighed the choices, and knowing that four more years might pass and he might be denied a discharge from the Navy had convinced him to accept Trent’s offer.

That was rather more than six years ago, and sometimes Pete reflected that he could be out of the Navy now, an unbonded Guide working with a Sentinel who, well... wasn’t Trent. Sometimes he wished he could go back in time and punch his younger self in the face.

Today had not been a good day. Pete had fucked up. Trent had gone into a zone, and they’d lost some evidence. His fault. Trent was pissed.

They were going home, Trent driving and cursing at the traffic, Pete biting his lip and trying to decide what would be worse: reminding Trent that they needed trash bags, or waiting until they got home and he noticed the bin was overflowing.

Better to just remind him. He wouldn’t be any less angry if he thought Pete was trying to hide the fact that he hadn’t done the shopping.

“Um...” Pete cleared his throat.

“What?” Trent barked.

“Can we stop? At the corner store, to get some trash bags and a few other things?”

“For fuck’s sake!” Trent swerved lanes abruptly. “Why didn’t you pick up some more over the weekend?”

Pete didn’t answer. He’d meant to go shopping on the weekend, and then Trent had decided that the walls were dirty. Pete hadn’t had time. No use pointing that out.

Trent jerked the car into a parking space. “Hurry the fuck up, I want to go home,” he snapped.

It was quiet inside the store, but only one register was open, and Pete was stuck behind someone who appeared to be shopping for a household of twenty-five. He held in a sigh and got into the line. The wait wasn’t going to improve Trent’s mood at all.

He’d been waiting for a few minutes when Trent stormed in from where he’d been waiting out in the car. “What the fuck’s taking so long?” he muttered furiously to Pete.

“Sorry,” Pete said, nodding towards the huge pile of groceries beside the register. Trent’s face twitched with irritation, but he kept quiet. The effort of being reasonably pleasant in public made a vein in his forehead throb.

Once they were finally outside, Trent strode ahead of Pete towards the car. “Hurry up!” he snapped. Pete followed reluctantly, away from the eyes of bystanders who forced Trent to act vaguely human. Last time he’d been in a mood like this, he’d dislocated Pete’s shoulder. 

Trent’s steps faltered and he came to a stop. “Trent?” Pete asked. He didn’t respond, and Pete sighed. He’d zoned again. That made twice in a day, which was a lot for Trent. It was probably something Pete had done; fucked up his laundry or something. It didn’t matter, Trent would figure out a way to blame Pete for it. He always did, and Pete was just... he was tired of it.

Then a few things happened very quickly, but as far as Pete could tell, it went like this:

He put his hand on Trent’s arm, to talk him out of the zone.

He heard a screech of tires.

He looked up to see a car speed around the corner and veer wildly into the street.

For about ten hours, everything froze while Pete tried to choose between two warring ideas.

He should get out of the way.

He should push Trent out of the way.

He should get out of the way.

He should push Trent out of the way.

Pete threw himself violently backwards and landed on the pavement, ripping a hole in his shirt and scraping all the skin off one palm.

Later on, he would describe what happened to the police. He would say that he’d frozen, panicked, hadn’t had time to think. No one would notice that Pete was lying through his teeth.


	2. Chapter 2

Trent’s parents came up from Philadelphia to plan the funeral. Pete helped pack up Trent’s belongings and tried to stay out of the way. Trent’s father, Roger, said little to him, except for things like “Don’t put the books into the big boxes, they’ll be too heavy to lift,” and “you might as well send all this kitchen stuff to Goodwill.” Trent’s mother Diane tried, she’d say “oh, he always loved The Eagles, you must remember...” and then trail off into wistful contemplation while Pete tried to think of something comforting to say. Really, he couldn’t look at either of them without wanting to throw himself down and beg for forgiveness, for letting Trent die, for _choosing_ to save himself instead.

There seemed to be so much to do. So much that needed to be attended to straight away, but Pete wasn’t in any condition to do anything for a couple of days. He’d heard that breaking a bond was painful and disorienting, but nothing could have prepared him for it. His head hurt like it was being split in half. It was hard to keep food down for a while, and there was a ceaseless, nagging sense of something being wrong, like he had his shoes on the wrong feet or couldn’t remember if he’d turned the oven off. He knew what was wrong, but it didn’t help. His caseworker told him that the feeling would lessen with time. Pete knew he was lucky to be young and healthy. It wasn’t uncommon for Sentinels and Guides whose health was more frail to follow their partners when a bond was broken.

The police were dismayed that Pete couldn’t give them a description of the car. At first the headlights had blinded him, and then he’d been looking at Trent’s body on the ground, not watching to see where the driver had gone. The minister for the funeral service wanted to know what hymns they wanted sung. Pete stayed out of that discussion entirely, leaving it to Trent’s parents. The lawyer read the will. There wasn’t much to it; Trent hadn’t had any children and left everything to his parents. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to leave anything to Pete, but Pete took Trent’s favourite baseball cap out of the closet and stuffed it in his bag anyway. He wasn’t sure why.

Pete’s G-TAC caseworker explained that a new assignment had been arranged for him, in Washington D.C., and he would be picked up the day after the funeral.

While Pete was clearing out the kitchen he found a new roll of trash bags, right up the back under a pile of instruction booklets for every appliance they owned. He fell down right there on the tiles, gripping the bags in one hand and the drawer handle in the other while he tried to figure out whether he needed to breathe in or out. 

Unbidden, a memory sprang into Pete’s mind. There had been a story Trent had liked to tell, about sneaking into a club when he was sixteen and making himself sick on cheap beer. He’d told it so many times that Pete remembered not just what had happened, but the funny mannerisms and turns of phrase he’d always used. He’d heard it so many times he’d become tired of it, could have recited the story himself word for word. If he closed his eyes he could picture Trent standing in front of him telling the story, but he was never going to hear Trent tell it again. It wasn’t as though it was a good memory, nothing that should have brought Pete to tears, but it didn’t seem to matter.

During the nights, when he couldn’t sleep, Pete wrote page after page of angry, desperate poetry, and then ripped them to shreds in case someone put together the vague references to the car accident and Pete’s state of mind and figured out what he’d done. In the mornings, his hands were always covered with pen ink, but Trent’s parents never noticed. 

He sent an email to Mikey, the day before the funeral. There were lots of things he could have said, but in the end he just wrote ‘Trent’s dead’ and hit send. Mikey emailed back with a million questions which Pete couldn’t answer, or didn’t want to. ‘I need to see you,’ Mikey said, and Pete replied, ‘I can probably get away for an hour or two after the funeral. Meet you at the usual place?’

The morning of the funeral, Pete was putting on his tie when he heard the doorbell ring. He went to answer it expecting a flower delivery or yet another neighbour with a casserole, but when he opened the door two men in cheap suits were standing on the other side.

“Guide Lowery? We’re here to transport you to your new assignment,” said the older man, holding up a G-TAC ID badge.

“I’m sorry,” Pete said automatically. The caseworkers merely stared at him uncomprehendingly, so Pete added, “I thought you were coming tomorrow? The funeral’s today.”

They looked down their noses at him. “We can’t really help it if you provided G-TAC with the wrong dates,” the older one said dismissively. 

“I’m sorry,” Pete said again, even though he was sure he’d given the right date.

The younger caseworker shifted on his feet. “Uh...” he said.

“What?” snapped the older one.

“We could wait a couple of hours, come back after the funeral?”

The older caseworker’s face turned an interesting colour. Pete watched as he spluttered. “Is that meant to be a joke, newbie? This is going to take long enough as it is, you know.” He glanced at Pete. “If you’ve got anything to bring, why don’t you go get it now?”

At that moment Trent’s mother stepped into the hallway. “Who is it?” she asked.

The caseworkers shuffled their feet awkwardly. “We’re sorry to interrupt, ma’am,” said the older one. “We’re here to collect the Guide.”

She looked at them. “We’re about to leave for the funeral,” she said, her voice becoming strained.

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” he said uncomfortably. “Unfortunately, it seems we were given the wrong information.”

“We’re leaving in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Pete, tell them.”

“We don’t want to delay you. We’ll collect the Guide and be out of your way very quickly.”

Trent’s mother drew herself up to her full height, which was more impressive than it had any right to be. “No,” she said firmly. “I’m burying my son today. I have to go to the cemetery and put him in the ground, and the funeral is going to be _exactly like I planned_. Pete is going to be there to read the twenty-third psalm and act as a pallbearer for his Sentinel, and you are just going to have to wait.” Her voice rose as she spoke, not quite to the level of shouting but enough that the caseworkers looked remarkably uncomfortable.

“Er... we’ll come back this afternoon,” said the older one.

“You do that,” said Trent’s mother, and shut the door in their faces.

It was a closed casket funeral, and Pete stood by it to give the reading. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,” he read, and felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to crack the lid open just a little. Just enough to check, make sure Trent was really dead. Instead he clutched the Bible harder with both hands and finished the psalm with a shaking voice, crumpling the edges of the pages between his fingers.

At the gravesite, they played _Take It to the Limit_ and the minister went around with a shovel loaded with soil. He brought it first to Trent’s mother, then his father, while Pete watched and knew that really, the first handful had been his.

***

The caseworkers were waiting outside the house when they got back from the funeral. Pete wasn’t going to get time to see Mikey. There would be no time to send him an email. It was probably better that way, anyway. Better than pretending things were better than they actually were. 

Pete distracted himself by eavesdropping on the caseworkers’ conversation. He personally thought that eavesdropping wasn’t the right term for overhearing a conversation held in the same car he was sitting in, but that was what someone who worked for G-TAC would call it, so whatever.

The older one was called Nagel, and the younger one was Ridley. Ridley was to be Pete’s new caseworker, which Pete learned not through being told but from overhearing Nagel explain to Ridley what his job responsibilities would be. Ridley had only been on the job for a few weeks, apparently.

It was after six in the evening by the time Pete caught a glimpse of their destination. Walter Reed Army Medical Center was gleaming and white, sitting in beautifully manicured grounds. From the car window, Pete could see a pond, and beyond that, a massive tower looming up from the surrounding buildings. The trainers drove on and turned through a gate a little further down the road. 

They continued on and Pete began to see that Walter Reed was almost like a little town in itself. Nagel was muttering directions to Ridley, and Pete caught a glimpse of directions written on a scrap of paper in his hand. They stopped outside a large building, and the two trainers got out. Pete opened his own door hesitantly, because he wasn’t sure if the trainers expected him to follow or to wait until he was told what to do.

“Come on, come on, hurry up,” barked Nagel, and Pete relaxed a fraction. At least he’d called it right.

“This is where the outpatients stay who live on base,” Ridley explained. “You’ll stay here, in shared quarters with the other Guides.” 

Ridley took a breath to add something else, and Nagel said, “Come on, kid, let the other Guides walk him through all that stuff, huh?”

Ridley went quiet and they led Pete inside. It was laid out like a large apartment complex, with a few open areas spaced around for socialising. There were rails on every wall and the staircases had chair lifts. Nagel made his way around a few turns and eventually knocked on one of the doors.

A Guide opened it and looked out at them. He was a bit older than Pete, with perfectly groomed brown hair and dressed in a G-TAC uniform. Pete fingered the hem of his own shirt, wondering if he was going to have to start wearing uniform too. He hoped not, but on the other hand it was better than fatigues. 

“The new Guide is here,” said Nagel. “You guys need to show him around, right? He’s your responsibility.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Guide seriously, and he stepped back to let Pete into the room.

Pete stepped through the doorway, glancing over his shoulder quickly to see whether the caseworkers were going to follow him in and keep bossing everyone around, but they didn’t and the Guide closed the door behind Pete.

“Hi!” he said. “I’m Edward. This is Sharon and Linda.” He gestured to the other two Guides in the room, a tired-looking older woman, and a woman slightly younger than Pete who smiled at him shyly.

“I’m Pete,” said Pete. He looked around the room. It wasn’t very big; there was a kitchenette on one side where Sharon was stirring something in a frying pan, a little table big enough to seat two, and then a couch and television against the opposite wall.

“You’ll be sharing with me, come on,” said Edward. He showed Pete to a small bedroom. “They dropped off some uniforms for you, but you might want to order more or change the size. I can show you how to do that if you want.”

“Awesome,” Pete said gloomily. Edward didn’t seem to take any notice of his tone, and left him to unpack.

From the main room, one of the women – Sharon, Pete was pretty sure – called out, “Have you had dinner, Pete, or do you want some butter chicken?”

Pete’s mouth watered. “Yeah!” he called back. The food smelled amazing. Trent had hated Indian food.

Sharon and Linda ate at the table, while Edward and Pete sat on the couch. They had the TV on, playing the news, but no one was paying much attention to it. They were too busy talking, about the day and the patients and the work they needed to do tomorrow. Pete listened, trying to pick up something that would help him, but it sounded overwhelming. There were almost five-hundred outpatients living in other apartments in the building, and about twice as many inpatients in the hospital. Out of those patients there were fifty-four Sentinels.

“Fifty-five,” said Linda. “Remember that new guy who just arrived today?”

Fifty-five Sentinels, and four Guides. How were they supposed to cope with the workload?

“Are any of those Sentinels bonded?” Pete asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Sharon. “There’s twenty-six unbonded Sentinels. Or twenty-seven, now, I guess.”

“When unbonded Sentinels get injured, they send the Guides off to new assignments and get us to take care of them. More efficient, you know,” said Edward. “We’re each responsible for specific Sentinels to make things simpler. David left the day before yesterday, so we’ve been covering his Sentinels since then, but now that you’re here you can take a couple of Sentinels off each of our hands. Let’s see, Evan’s not too much trouble, he’s just kind of old...”

“Edward,” said Sharon, “don’t give Pete all the assholes just because he’s new. Don’t be a jerk.”

“I’m not!” Edward said indignantly. “You can handle Evan,” he added, speaking directly to Pete.

“Wouldn’t it make sense for Pete to just take responsibility for the Sentinels that were David’s?” Linda wondered.

“But Linda,” Edward whined. He glanced at Pete from the corner of his eye. “I don’t like Evan,” he muttered.

“It’s fine,” Pete said, not wanting to cause problems on his first night. “I don’t mind.”

“Great!” said Edward, cheering up considerably.

“That’s one,” said Sharon with a smirk. “And what about Julia? I’m sure Pete would like her.”

“Like hell!” Edward looked warily at Pete, then sagged. “You can have Cassidy,” he said. “That’s my best offer.”

Pete shrugged. The names meant nothing to him; he had no way of knowing whether he was being screwed over until he met the Sentinels in question. Sharon and Linda both named two of their own Sentinels and that rounded out Pete’s workload.

“I can’t believe you tried to dump your crabbiest Sentinels on Pete,” Sharon grumbled, once everything was organised. “I gave him the two that are the farthest away from the others. All this walking is killing my legs.”

Pete grimaced, reminded of the impossible task of learning his way around the enormous facility. Linda must have noticed his expression.

“Don’t worry, it’s not so bad,” she said. “We’ll help you find your way around.” She pulled out a map and showed Pete roughly where each Sentinel could be found. Pete kept busy for the rest of the evening making sure he was ready for the next day and trying not to think too much.

***

Being a Guide generally meant working long days. Guides assigned to one Sentinel were always on duty, or at least, needed to be available whenever their Sentinel wanted. Otherwise it was G-TAC who had oversight of their schedules, and they weren’t known for being easygoing. Pete had expected to be kept pretty busy, and so when he heard the other Guides moving around early the next morning, he wasn’t surprised, and dragged himself out of bed. 

Edward made a point of taking him around and showing him which rooms were occupied by Sentinels, and at the end of the tour said, “Evan’s in this room. Just had a hip replacement. Why don’t you check on him and see if he needs anything, and I’ll go help Julia with her breakfast?”

“Sure,” Pete said with a tolerant smile. 

He knocked on the door and a gruff voice said, “Yeah? What is it?”

Suddenly nervous, Pete cleared his throat. “Uh... it’s Pete? I’m a Guide? Just checking if you need anything?”

Silence ticked by for a second or two, and then Evan barked, “Well? The door’s not locked, or do you want me to hobble over there and let you in?”

Pete wiped his hand on his pants and opened the door, trying to look friendly and helpful. An elderly man sat in an armchair and glowered at him. “You’re new, ain’t you?” he asked grumpily. “Can’t keep you all straight, changing all the time.”

“Can I help you get some breakfast together?”

“What do you think, genius? Maybe I’m happy to starve to death.”

Taking a deep breath, Pete struggled to maintain a cheerful attitude. “What do you feel like?”

“Two poached eggs on toast. With ketchup. And coffee.”

So Pete made the coffee and got the eggs cooking, fielding a barrage of suggestions from the Sentinel about all the ways his cooking didn’t quite measure up. He got the food plated up without dumping it on Evan’s lap, which he considered achievement enough for one day.

Pete was about to excuse himself to go check up on the other Sentinel he was responsible for in the building, but Evan said, “Since you’re just standing there, you might as well empty the dishwasher.” And after that, he wanted his bed made and the trash emptied, and before he knew it, Evan was saying “I’ve got an appointment with the physio in fifteen minutes, are you taking me or am I supposed to make my own way there?”

Crap. The day had barely started and he’d already fallen behind. Pete helped Evan into his wheelchair while Evan grumbled and groaned and complained that Pete was doing it all wrong. Once he was settled, Pete grabbed the handles to push him out into the hallway, but Evan twisted around, trying to swat his hands away. “I can manage, I’m not feeble!” he snapped.

Pete let go and Evan wheeled himself through the door and then stopped. “Well? Come on, help me around the corner! It’s not exactly a piece of cake, you know!”

“Sorry,” Pete muttered, taking hold of the chair again and ignoring Evan’s muttering about incompetent Guides. No wonder the old man had never bonded. 

Pete passed Edward in the hallway and sent the other man an urgent look. 

“Hey,” Edward said. “I saw you’d been held up, so I asked Jon if he could sit with Terri for a while. She’ll be fine until this evening.” He pointed down the hall to a small alcove with some chairs and a television. A Guide turned in his chair to look at them and gave a small wave; he wasn’t wearing a uniform like Pete and Edward, but Pete had always been able to identify Guides on sight. He tried not to glower.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Come on, what’s the hold up?” Evan complained. Pete grimaced and pushed Edward on down the hallway. How nice for Jon, that he had an hour to sit and watch TV with a Sentinel he wasn’t even bonded to. 

Edward had given Pete directions to the physio, but Evan didn’t seem to accept that and kept telling Pete to ‘turn here’ and ‘slow down on this hill, what do you think this is, NASCAR?’

Pete stayed with Evan through his appointment, which wasn’t so bad because at least Evan was too distracted by the physiotherapist to give Pete any trouble. Then the physio suggested that they link up while Evan worked through some particularly difficult exercises, and Pete realised that he hadn’t linked with anyone since Trent had died over a week earlier. He hadn’t linked with anyone except Trent in almost a decade.

He took Evan’s hand and it ended up being not that big a deal. The link felt different to Trent, but not bad. He could tell that Evan was tired and sore and worried, and was surprised to feel a surge of pity for the old man. Afterwards, Pete had to take Evan back to his room and then hurry back to the hospital.

Pete found the right ward thanks to the map Linda had given him, and looked around the room. He approached a nurse standing by a trolley and cleared his throat. “Uh, I’m supposed to sit with Mr Stillman while he has dialysis?”

“Just a second,” the nurse said, making notes on a clipboard. She looked up after a minute and said, “Never interrupt a nurse while they’re doing medications. Now, what do you need?”

“Uh, sorry. I’m Pete? The new Guide? And I’m supposed to sit with Mr Stillman...”

“While he has dialysis, right. They’re running behind. Why don’t you help me take around the lunches?” The nurse pushed the trolley into a room and locked the door, then led Pete to another, larger trolley. “I’m Viv, by the way,” she said. “Take the other side of this, okay?”

Pete helped her wheel the trolley a few feet down the hallway, where they stopped.

“Patient’s names and room numbers are on here,” Viv explained, pointing to a chart hanging off the side of the trolley. “Always make sure you match the right tray to the right patient. Some of them have allergies or dietary restrictions. Here, this is the one for this room. You take it in and I’ll do the other side.”

They handed out the meals. Every so often Viv would point out patients who were Sentinels and Pete would take a few minutes to talk to them. They all seemed decent enough, but most of them were on some type of pain medication and not very talkative.

At one of the last rooms, Viv handed him a tray and said, “This patient just flew in last night, so he’s still a little jetlagged.” She tapped on the open door and called out, “Patrick? It’s Viv, with your lunch.”

A moment passed, then a male voice called back, “Yeah,” with complete indifference. Victoria led the way into the room.

“This is Pete,” she said to Patrick, wheeling his table into place. “He’s new here, just like you.”

“Hey,” Patrick said, glancing at Pete for less than a second before turning back towards the window. Pete put his lunch tray down on the table and took the chance to get a closer look. Patrick had fair hair, cut short, and blue eyes, and Pete would have bet he was good looking enough under normal circumstances, but mostly he looked terrible. His face was gaunt and his eyes had huge shadows under them.

“Try to eat something this time, okay?” Viv suggested, taking the cover off the plate to reveal sandwiches and a muffin. “You didn’t have breakfast. Your body needs fuel to heal.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said again, in the same flat tone. Viv walked out of the room with a glance at Pete, and he’d learned by now to recognise the cue.

“So,” he said, standing by the bed, “Where did you fly in from?”

For a minute it seemed like Patrick wouldn’t answer, but eventually he replied, “Nowhere.” 

“O-kay,” said Pete, when Patrick did nothing else to prod the conversation along. “So. You must be hungry, if you didn’t have breakfast.”

“Not really.”

“Oh. Well.” Pete tried to figure out the right thing to say, feeling slightly desperate because Patrick was too thin as it was, and figuring out how to get a finicky Sentinel to eat was definitely in his job description. “If you’re having issues with your senses...”

“I’m fine.”

“You heard what Viv said. Don’t you want to get better?”

Patrick shrugged with one shoulder. “Don’t really care. Not much point.”

Pete gave up. “Well, if you’re just going to let these sandwiches go to waste, do you mind if I eat them? I haven’t had lunch yet, and I’m really hungry.”

Patrick barked out a surprised laugh, and Pete was startled because it was so unexpected. He’d thought that Patrick would be pissed off with him for being a smartass.

“Why not,” Patrick said. “Someone might as well eat them.”

So Pete picked up half a sandwich and bit off the corner of it. “It’s good,” he said, surprised, because he’d heard a lot of things about hospital food, all of them bad. He wolfed the sandwich down, making appreciative noises. From the corner of his eye he could see Patrick watching him and glancing at the remaining sandwiches on the plate. Eventually Patrick grabbed the other half of the sandwich and began to eat it; it must have been awkward because an IV was stuck in the back of his hand, but he kept his left arm tucked under the blankets and didn’t move it.

“Pete,” called Viv from outside the room. “They’re taking Mr Stillman to the dialysis unit now.”

Pete stuffed the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed it as fast as he could. “I should probably go,” he said, “but I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”


	3. Chapter 3

At the end of the day, Pete was heading back to his apartment and passed Jon, the Guide from earlier in the day. He was making his way up the hallway on crutches, a keychain looped around one finger.

“Hi,” Pete said, while a sinking, guilty feeling swept through his stomach. He’d been so irritated by Jon earlier. Whoops. 

“Hey,” said Jon. “Get through your first day alright?”

“Yeah, um... look, thanks for helping me out, this morning. With Terri.”

“It’s no problem. There’s a lot to do.”

“Yeah, but still... I didn’t realise you’re a patient. You shouldn’t have to pick up my slack.”

“It’s fine,” said Jon. “I know how it is, and it’s no trouble. Anyway, this is me. I’ve got a TV dinner with my name on it.” Jon stopped by a door and awkwardly balanced the crutches so he could unlock it. 

“You run out of real food?” Pete asked.

“Nah, it’s just putting a TV dinner in the microwave is about as much cooking as I can manage right now.”

None of the Sentinels in the facility were living on TV dinners because they couldn’t stand at the stove long enough to cook. The Sentinels who were up to it were supposed to cook for themselves, and Pete and the other Guides were supposed to cook for those who couldn’t. Pete had just left Evan’s apartment where he’d made a lasagne that should provide the man with leftovers for a few meals.

“You should come eat with the rest of us sometime. I’m sure it would be okay.”

“Sometimes I do, but I don’t want to intrude too much. It’s not like G-TAC really supplies enough food to entertain guests all the time.” 

“Well then, I can come cook something in your apartment.” Pete realised he was being kind of pushy, and added, “If you don’t mind.”

“That would be... pretty awesome, actually,” Jon said happily. 

So they went into Jon’s apartment (a single room, much less spacious than Evan’s suite) and Pete picked through the sad selection of food in Jon’s fridge, trying to pull together the ingredients for a decent meal.

Jon was good company, easy to talk to. Time passed almost without Pete noticing as he threw a meal together, with Jon giving a little help from time to time from his seat at the kitchen table. Pete was just getting ready to serve the food when he noticed the computer sitting on the desk in the corner.

“Hey,” he said, “Does that thing have internet access?”

***

Since Pete had gone, Mikey had sent three emails.

 _Pete,_ said the first one, _You weren’t there tonight, is everything okay?_

_I’m going to go back tomorrow morning at half-past seven, if you got held up._

The next email read, _I’m not sure what’s happened, but I guess you couldn’t get away. Email me back when you get a chance?_

And following that, there was _Hey Pete, I guess you must be in Washington by now. I hope you get this eventually. Reply so I know you’re ok?_

Pete started to type quickly. 

_Mikey,_

_I’m sorry I didn’t make it yesterday. They picked me up a day early. I really wanted to see you :(_

_Things are okay here. I’m sharing an apartment with some other Guides who are showing me around. Everyone’s been really great. I’m sending this email from Jon’s apartment; he’s a Guide too but he’s a patient here._

_Thanks for being my friend over the past year, I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye._

Pete reread the email a dozen times, wanting to add more or make it somehow better, but in the end he knew he couldn’t tie up Jon’s computer all night, so he hit send and cleared the history.

“It’s fine,” said Jon. “I don’t have room inspections like you guys do, G-TAC won’t see it.”

Pete nodded, but Jon’s words weren’t enough to reassure him. Maybe G-TAC hadn’t gone through Jon’s room so far, but there was nothing stopping them from doing so in the future. He wished Jon a good night and went back to his own apartment.

Edward had made spaghetti, but Pete had eaten with Jon and wasn’t really hungry. He poured himself a drink and sat on the couch, trying remember when he’d last had an evening to hang out with friends.

Sharon was reading something when Pete sat down, printed front and back on three loose pages. Linda was giving Sharon an anxious look and biting her lip. “Are you sure you should be reading that out here?” she asked. “Anyone could just walk in.”

“G-TAC’s not going to drop in at this time of night. Relax,” said Sharon.

“What is it?” Pete asked.

“It’s an article Blair Sandburg wrote,” Linda said, with something in her voice approaching reverence. “A friend printed it out for me.”

“It was Melina, one of the bonded Guides,” Sharon explained conspiratorially. 

“Sharon!” Linda hissed.

“I’ve already forgotten the name. What does he say about training?” Pete hoped she would keep talking. About a year ago, there had been a huge scandal when G-TAC had been caught out trying to make two Sentinel-Guide pairs disappear because they were rocking the boat over abuse of Guides. Although Mikey had told Pete a bit about what was going on, living with Trent had kept Pete from following the situation closely. Guides’ rights had gained a lot of public attention as a result, and the government had made noises about making real changes. Nothing much had come of it yet, but Mikey was pretty hopeful about it. 

“ _On the use of operant conditioning in Guide training,_ ” Sharon quoted. “He’s arguing that Sentinels rewarding Guides for good behaviour is really just as bad as beating the shit out of them.”

“He says it’s equally demeaning,” Linda said. “Which it is.”

“Hmph,” said Sharon. “If it were up to me...”

“Operant conditioning?” Pete asked, still trying to catch up.

Edward spoke up. “That’s, you know, reward and punishment to get the behaviour you want. Like that guy with the dogs, who electric shocked them each time they were fed.”

“That’s not...” said Linda, but Sharon spoke over her.

“Apparently, there are some Sentinels out there who are against the idea of hitting Guides,” she said sceptically. “And they promote this other system. But Blair ‘Sandburg’,” she sniffed, “thinks they might as well not bother.”

“Sandburg’s Sentinel is into this operant whatever?” Pete wondered. He was sure Mikey told him that Sandburg had been tortured, but maybe it hadn’t been as bad as he’d heard. 

“Ellison?” Edward asked. “No, I don’t think he’s into anything like that.”

Ellison? “I thought they were bonded.”

“They are,” Sharon said. 

“I didn’t know bonded Guides could keep their names.”

Sharon shrugged. “Guess _Sandburg_ makes his own rules.”

Huh. Maybe Pete could go back to using his own name. It wasn’t like he was still bonded to Trent, after all.

“And I don’t really see what’s so bad about getting a reward for doing a good job. I wouldn’t mind a manicure; if I could get one just for doing my job I’d consider it a good deal.”

“That’s not the sort of thing he’s talking about,” said Linda. “He says these Sentinels are telling their Guides that stuff like sleeping in a bed or having a hot shower are privileges they have to earn.”

Pete got up to refill his glass, even though he wasn’t really thirsty anymore. 

“I still think if they want to convince Sentinels that it’s a better way, they should go ahead,” Sharon said. “You’re only young, Linda, you haven’t had as many Sentinels as I have. You’ll understand one day. Edward? Pete? Don’t you think so?”

Edward just made a faint, noncommittal noise, and Pete realised that everyone was looking at him. Sharon’s stare was particularly intense and Pete couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less than answer her question, be part of the conversation. She was looking at him like she expected him to agree, but Pete remembered choosing Trent over a multitude of rules and consequences masquerading as kindness. It had just seemed more honest to him. 

“I dunno,” Pete said at last, when the silence had gone way too long. “I think the sort of thing Sandburg’s talking about can be just as bad, if it’s done right.”

Sharon scoffed. “He says this type of conditioning is used in schools. Well, you know, those behaviour modification schools, for problem kids. It’s not like it’s abuse or something.”

Pete decided he really needed to get away from these people for a while. “Great,” he said, putting his glass in the sink. “I’m so glad we’ve got you around, to tell us these things.” He headed for the door, aware that he’d made too much of a scene and that the other three Guides were all watching him to see whether he’d explode, but he was past caring.

He walked out of the building, thinking of a bench seat he’d seen that morning on his way to the hospital, but when he got close he was still too wound up to sit down, and he kept walking.

***

When Pete went back to the apartment, much later on, the other Guides were all asleep. He was tired, but not really sleepy, and he sat on the couch for another hour or so writing lyrics on the discarded business section of a newspaper. He read over what he’d written, and knew that he really ought to get rid of it, but he found himself reluctant to do so. He slid the paper under his mattress like the suspect in an Agatha Christie novel and soon after that, was asleep. 

Edward’s alarm clock went off far too soon. Pete stumbled around the apartment, banging into things and getting in the way of the others. No matter how irritating he was, though, the other Guides were all incredibly patient with him. While Pete was remaking a cup of instant coffee (because he’d accidentally put orange juice in the first cup, not milk), Sharon came to talk to him.

“I hope you’re okay,” she said. “You seemed upset last night.”

“I’m fine,” Pete said quickly. “Just fine.”

“Well,” Sharon said doubtfully, “good.” Across the room, Edward cleared his throat meaningfully and Sharon rolled her eyes. “I mean,” she added, “I’m sorry if I said anything insensitive. I’ve been told I need to work on that.”

Pete couldn’t help but smile at such an awkward apology. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. He needed to do some damage control before the other Guides all started thinking he was a complete basket case. “I’ve just been kind of going through some stuff since my Sentinel died.” That was sort of true, and hopefully the other Guides would drop the issue.

“Your Sentinel?” Linda asked. “You were bonded?”

“Well – yeah.”

“That’s awful!” said Linda.

“I didn’t realise, Pete,” said Edward.

“How long ago did your Sentinel die?” Linda asked.

“Well... just over a week.”

“A week?” Linda sounded appalled. “They haven’t given you any time to grieve, or – or anything!”

Pete shrugged, and Sharon sneered. “Sounds like G-TAC,” she said. Pete nodded.

“If we can do anything to make it easier for you...” Edward said, and Pete couldn’t let him go on any more.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s not really a big deal, I don’t... it wasn’t...” He threw his hands up helplessly, but the other Guides seemed to get what he was saying, and settled down.

“Still,” Linda said quietly. “That must be a difficult adjustment. I hope you’ll let us help, if we can.”

“Sure,” Pete said, and Linda and Edward finally backed off. 

Sharon began to step away, but turned back to ask, “Is that what you were upset about yesterday?”

“Huh?”

“Your Sentinel. Was he one of those operant-whatever types?”

“Oh. No. Far from it. That’s why I bonded with him, I guess.” Pete shook his head, remembering how he’d agonised over the decision. “He seemed like the better alternative. Because – you know, I was one of those problem kids. Had my fill of all that behaviour modification shit.” Too late, Pete wondered if he might be revealing too much, but Sharon just nodded thoughtfully and let him be.

With Edward’s help, Pete learned his way around the facility a bit better over the next few days, and Linda explained the routines and the best times to do laundry and whatever housecleaning needed doing. Sharon gave him a few photocopied timesheets and showed him how to fill them out.

“There’s one for each ward,” she explained. “You need to put down when you were there and which Sentinel you were working with, and then the nurse in charge has to sign off on it. Your G-TAC caseworker will collect them when he comes in. You need to keep these up to date, because they don’t call ahead when they’re coming in and they get shitty if you fall behind.”

It looked like a pain in the ass, but Pete didn’t want to piss off his caseworker so he took the forms and stuffed them into a pocket. 

Pete was sitting in the chemo lounge with a middle-aged Sentinel when Sharon appeared.

“Pete, I’m supposed to switch with you so you can go help Patrick out with his physio session,” she said.

“Huh?” Pete said stupidly. “I thought Patrick was one of yours.”

“He asked for you specifically,” Sharon said impatiently. “I guess he’s yours, now. Come on, would you? I’d like to sit down.” 

Pete hurried upstairs to Patrick’s room, and Viv waved him over from the doorway. Pete could hear her telling Patrick, “Pete’s here. Try to cooperate with Aaron, okay? He knows what he’s doing.”

Pete came through the doorway in time to hear Patrick say, “Fine.” Viv left the room, nodding to Pete as she passed. Patrick looked slightly better, like he’d had some sleep since the last time Pete had seen him, and he was flicking through a magazine with his left arm still tucked under the bed sheets.

“Hey,” Pete said, sitting in the chair by Patrick’s bed. “Sharon said you asked for me?”

“Yeah,” said Patrick. “Um, I hope you weren’t in the middle of something.” He looked like it had only just occurred to him that Pete might have been busy, but it was still an unusual level of consideration for a Sentinel.

“It’s fine. So. Physio, huh?”

Patrick made a face. “I hate it,” he said. “I know I need to get on with it, but I hate it, and I hate having an audience. No offence. But you seemed cool yesterday, so I asked for you.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.” Pete smiled faintly, and Patrick gave an awkward shrug.

Then someone tapped on the door. “It’s Aaron,” called a deep voice. “Ready for physio, Patrick?”

Patrick sighed as Aaron opened the door. “Yeah.”

“Let’s get started,” said Aaron. With a scowl, Patrick dragged his left arm out from under the sheets, wincing slightly. Bandages were wrapped around his forearm down to the wrist, and tucked neatly over the stump. Pete blinked at it, noticing that Patrick’s gaze was fixed firmly on the window.

“The swelling’s no worse,” said Aaron, taking the arm with both hands. Patrick tensed. “And it doesn’t look like there’s been much bleeding. Has there? When were the bandages changed?”

“Just after breakfast,” Patrick answered in a tense voice.

“Hm. Hasn’t been all that long, then.” Patrick didn’t respond, and Aaron began to direct Patrick through a series of exercises. As Patrick moved his arm around, Pete could see his face tensing with pain. Aaron must have noticed as well.

“Do you need more pain relief?” he asked.

“Viv came by an hour or so ago. I’m fine,” Patrick said. “The bandages just feel scratchy.”

Aaron glanced at Pete, who snapped to attention. “Do you need to link up?” he offered. Patrick didn’t speak, but gave a single jerky nod, which would have to do.

Pete moved around the bed to take Patrick’s right hand, which put him between Patrick and the window. Patrick’s eyes flicked towards Pete as they linked up, then back towards the window just over Pete’s shoulder as he followed Aaron’s instructions. Occasionally Aaron would say something like, “Look at me, Patrick, you need to see what you’re doing,” and Patrick would turn his head for a second or two, but he kept his eyes up on Aaron’s face and always looked back the other way before long.

The same as linking with Evan, being linked to Patrick gave Pete a much clearer idea of the emotions he was trying to keep hidden. He could sense Patrick’s misery, his worry, the dim echoes of physical pain, and anger so harshly repressed that it made Pete faintly queasy. More tellingly, every time Patrick turned his head to the left Pete felt a spike of loathing.

Patrick _hated_ it, it disgusted him. Pete was staggered by it. Mostly because of the familiarity. He’d always thought only he was capable of that much self-loathing.

It started to be too much, after a while. Pete tried to distance himself, but it was all but impossible, and by the time Patrick was ready to drop the link Pete’s pulse was racing. He breathed slowly and hoped that Patrick was too distracted to notice.

At the end of the session, Aaron packed up his equipment and asked Patrick if he had an appointment with a psychologist yet.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, a little irritably. “It’s on Monday. They told me yesterday.”

“Good,” said Aaron. “It’s important that you learn to accept the changes to your body.”

“Fine,” said Patrick.

Aaron nodded. “Right, then,” he said. “See you tomorrow.” He shared a concerned look with Pete as he left the room.

It was really time for Pete to leave, too. There was a mountain of work to do, but he couldn’t make himself move from Patrick’s side. Not yet.

“Are you okay?” he asked Patrick.

“Yeah,” Patrick said with a shrug. “You probably have to go now, right?”

Pete took a step back. Patrick’s tone wasn’t exactly cold, but it definitely wasn’t welcoming either. “Does it hurt?” he asked, because he could never learn when to shut his goddamn mouth.

Patrick didn’t look at Pete, or his arm, but it was pretty obvious what Pete was asking anyway, and after a minute he said, “Not anymore. I can’t really feel it at all. It’s weird.”

“Huh. I guess that’s the pain meds. Are you going to have a, uh, artificial hand?” Pete decided to press his luck, since Patrick didn’t seem to mind the questions all that much.

“Eventually. I guess. The orthopaedist says I have to wait for the swelling to go down so they can see what the... what it’s like. They had to operate again the day before I flew out here because it was infected, and not the right, uh, shape. They had to... take off more than they expected, because I wouldn’t agree to the surgery at first.”

For all that Pete didn’t know how to shut up, there were times when he had no idea what to say. Not that he ever let that stop him. “That’s really shitty, man.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said, closing his eyes and slumping back onto the pillows. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Pete was gearing up to ask another question when he heard someone call his name from the hallway. “Hey, Pete? If you’re done, we could use your help upstairs.”

It was Edward. “Sure,” Pete said. He looked back at Patrick, who was still lying back and looked half asleep. “I’ll come see you tomorrow?” he suggested.

“Mm-hm,” Patrick grunted.

***

Pete ran into Jon again that evening. More accurately, he lingered near Jon’s room trying to look busy until Jon happened to walk past. He felt pretty crappy about it, because Jon seemed like a perfectly nice guy who didn’t deserve to be used for his internet access, but Pete really wanted to see if Mikey had emailed him back.

“It’s fine,” Jon said. “Seriously, any time.”

It didn’t make him feel any less guilty to have Jon be so accommodating, but Pete tried to ignore it.

Mikey had replied, as it turned out, and he seemed pissed.

_What the hell, Pete, you’re trying to ditch me now you’re not in Jersey anymore? I don’t fucking think so._

_Tell me what it’s like there. Do you have a Sentinel? Are they a jerk?_

_Gerard decided to dye his hair, and he spilled the dye bottle into the laundry hamper. Major disaster._

_You better fucking answer this email_

Pete smiled and began to type a reply.

***

Pete headed back to the apartment afterwards and Edward let him inside, a worried frown on his face. Ridley was standing by the kitchen table, looking impatient.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you for like, twenty minutes.”

Pete’s stomach dropped. “I’m really sorry,” he said quickly. “I was...” he trailed off. He didn’t want to cause Jon trouble, and Ridley wasn’t going to give a shit what his excuse was, anyway.

Ridley looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, well,” he said. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m here to collect your timesheets.”

Pete handed them over, not quite believing that could be the end of it. Ridley read over the sheets and signed them at the bottom, slipping them into a folder. “Any problems?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Pete.

“Good,” Ridley said. “See you next time.”

And that was it. Ridley headed out the door and Pete breathed a sigh of relief.

“You dodged a bullet, man,” Edward said. “Lucky it wasn’t that asshole Nagel.”

“Yeah,” Pete said with a grin.

Linda began dishing up dinner and Sharon handed Pete a pager. “It’s your turn,” she said, and when she could tell Pete didn’t understand, she sighed. “It’s your turn to be on call tonight,” she elaborated. “Sometimes one of the Sentinels needs help during the night. We take turns to carry the pager. The code will tell you where you’re needed; I’ve written it all down. Here.” She handed Pete a list of codes, which he pocketed along with the pager.

“Thanks,” said Pete. “Does something normally come up?”

Sharon glanced at the other two, and they all shrugged.

“It’s really unpredictable,” said Linda. “Sometimes there’s a bunch of calls, often there’s nothing. You never know.”

Pete decided not to worry about it and went to bed that night as usual, making sure to keep a change of clothes nearby just in case. He tried without success to go to sleep, for at least an hour and probably two. It had been getting harder and harder to go to sleep at night; it was becoming a problem. Just as he was beginning to feel drowsy, the pager buzzed.

“Damn it,” Pete muttered, fumbling for his pants and jacket. Edward groaned and pulled the pillow over his head as Pete blundered around. Pete stumbled out into the hallway and tried to read the notes Sharon had written for him. According to the pager, he was needed in the hospice. Awesome.

When Pete got there, a nurse directed him to one of the rooms. “Mrs Nunez has been in and out of zones all day, but this one’s lasting too long.”

An elderly Sentinel lay on the bed, as thin as a bundle of sticks, not moving, barely breathing. Pete glanced around the room for any clue of what could be causing the zone. Hospitals, he had learned, were full of potential sensory traps for Sentinels. Chemical smells, the constant hum of machines, and dozens of people packed closely together. 

Pete put took the Sentinel’s hand in his and began to speak to her, the words coming easily thanks to years of experience. He knew that it didn’t much matter what he said, just that the Sentinel could hear his voice. After a few minutes with no apparent change, Pete used his fingernails to put pressure on the Sentinel’s palm – not too much, her skin was so frail, but if the sound of his voice was doing nothing to end the zone, she might need stimulation from a different sense, and there weren’t many other options available.

It was the longest, the hardest, Pete had ever had to work to bring a Sentinel out of a zone. Several times, a nurse stopped by the room to see if there had been any improvement. Pete worried that they would become impatient with his lack of success, but one of the nurses explained that Mrs Nunez’s zones had been an ongoing and increasingly severe problem.

After nearly an hour, Mrs Nunez’s eyelids began to flutter. She opened them and peered vaguely at Pete. Pete tried to get a working link established, because it would make him better able to keep her conscious, but the Sentinel didn’t respond when he reached out, and when her eyes went unfocused Pete realised she was drifting into another zone.

Frustrated, Pete began working to bring her out of the zone all over again. After a few minutes, Mrs Nunez’s breath gurgled and stopped. After several seconds, she coughed lightly and breathed normally again, but the same thing happened a few minutes later.

“Crap,” Pete muttered, fumbling for the call button. He redoubled his efforts to bring the Sentinel out of her zone to no avail. He jabbed the call button again. Where was everyone? Shouldn’t people be running in and doing something? People more qualified than Pete?

The room sounded quiet suddenly. Mrs Nunez had stopped breathing again. Pete waited for her to cough, like she had before. He waited. He stumbled to his feet and called through the doorway. “Hey – someone? Help?”

“What’s wrong?” the nurse asked. “Oh, dear,” she added, taking in Mrs Nunez lying still on the bed. She came into the room and took her pulse. “I’d better go call her family.”

“Aren’t you going to try to revive her?”

The nurse smiled sadly at Pete. “Mrs Nunez had a DNR order. We’ve been expecting this for a long time. Thank you for sitting with her, though. You would have helped her feel more comfortable.”

She went back out to the hallway, and Pete followed her. “Is there anything I need to do?” he asked.

“No,” said the nurse. “You can go back and get some sleep. If you could let Sharon know, that would be good.”

“Sharon?”

“She’s been taking care of Mrs Nunez for more than six months now. They’d built up quite a rapport. Will you tell her?”

“Of course.”

Pete walked back to the apartment. It was a lonely walk, a long way with nothing but his thoughts for company. That was two, now. Two Sentinels who’d died when he was supposed to be helping them. He’d done his best for Mrs Nunez, of course he had, but it hadn’t been enough. And he couldn’t even say that much for Trent.

He got back into bed without waking anyone, but he didn’t think he’d be getting any more sleep, and he was right.

***

Sharon had seemed so harsh to Pete, almost abrasive, that he found it hard to imagine her caring for the frail Sentinel from the night before. Still, he tried to break the news gently. It could just be that there was a softer side to her that he hadn’t seen.

“Last night,” he said, “Mrs Nunez, in the hospice? Um, she passed away.”

Sharon’s expression barely flickered. “Oh,” she said, nodding. “Right.”

Pete waited, but she said nothing else, so he left to make breakfast. Behind him, he heard Sharon say, “I guess I’m down to five, then. Who’d like me to take a Sentinel off your hands?”

While the negotiation went on in the background, Pete concentrated on buttering his toast. He kept his mouth shut, but Sharon came over to make coffee and must have noticed something in his face. “What’s the matter with you?”

Pete couldn’t hold it back anymore. “You know, someone died last night,” he said, the words coming out even more accusing than he’d intended.

Sharon stared at him, her expression not even flickering. It was strange, Pete thought, that such a small woman could be so intimidating. “Betty was on so much pain medication she didn’t know what day of the week it was,” she said. “She used to love the symphony, but when I first met her, she’d been too sick to go for over a year. That’s not life. There’s plenty of unbearable Sentinels here who’ll probably live for years to come, while the decent ones suffer and die. But I’m not going to cry over it just to suit you, when Betty told me again and again that she was ready to go.”

“Sorry,” said Pete, chastened. “I didn’t think.” She should have been the one to sit with Mrs Nunez last night. How she must resent Pete for being the one who was there. For letting it happen. 

Pete escaped the apartment as soon as he possibly could, and headed for Terri’s room. After that, the day was as busy as the one before it, and it didn’t help that Pete was tired from lack of sleep. In the evening, he headed down to the laundry in the basement to wash his own clothes and some of Evan’s. He’d taken a newspaper with him to read, but found himself drifting off while he waited. He startled awake when someone started another load across the room; the machine groaned into life like a tree being felled.

“Sorry,” Jon said. “I was trying to be quiet, but this thing didn’t cooperate.”

“It’s fine,” Pete said, blinking to clear his eyes. “I was trying not to fall asleep anyway. Obviously that didn’t work out so good.”

Jon grinned. “I heard you had a busy night.”

Pete’s mood plummeted, and Jon’s face became grim. “I guess it was pretty rough, huh.”

“I just feel like I should have been able to do something,” Pete said.

“I understand,” said Jon. “But you can’t blame yourself. You did everything you could. Sharon told me they’ve been expecting her to die for weeks now.”

“You talked to Sharon about it?” Pete groaned.

“Yeah, why?”

“I was kind of an asshole about the whole thing. It just. I was upset, and she didn’t seem to care.”

“Oh, well. I’m sure she understands. She didn’t seem mad when I talked to her, if that helps,” said Jon. “It’s hard to be with someone while they go through that. I think it even gets to the staff sometimes, and they’re trained to deal with it.”

“We’re not, though,” Pete observed.

“No,” Jon agreed.

Everyone knew that Sentinels were unpredictable, volatile, when around a Guide who was hurt. Even if it wasn’t their own Guide. Even if they’d never met the Guide before. Pete had never wondered if the reverse might be true, and it didn’t seem like G-TAC had either. Or they just didn’t care. He was starting to realise what a toll it was taking on him, being around so many sick and injured Sentinels all day when he couldn’t just magically fix whatever was wrong. He could only wait with them while they got better. Or didn’t.

“You look like your puppy just got run over,” said Jon. “Let’s talk about something happier, huh? Who are you emailing? Your parents?”

“Mikey,” Pete answered instantly.

“Your brother?”

“No,” said Pete. “Mikey’s a friend.” Jon raised his eyebrows. In Pete’s experience, it was slightly unusual for Guides to have friends like that, ones they stayed in touch with even when not stationed in the same location. Trent had made it nearly impossible, and there were plenty of other Sentinels who were no different.

“A school friend?” Jon pressed, like he was really, truly interested in what Pete had to say.

“Mikey’s another Guide,” said Pete, and found himself spilling the whole story. Well, most of it.

“I’d never have registered as a conscientious objector,” Jon said thoughtfully, when Pete mentioned that Mikey was.

“Really? Never?” Pete said. Jon didn’t strike him as the type to be interested in a military career.

“Well, I mean, maybe, but in the Army there’s a huge community of Guides. I like that. And you don’t get that so much outside the military. I’d miss it. Don’t you think?”

Pete shrugged. “I never really got the chance to register as a conscientious objector, even if I’d wanted to,” he said thoughtlessly.

“Huh?”

Whoops. “Hey, Jon, have you ever dated someone who wasn’t one of your Sentinels?”

“Sure, in high school.” Jon raised his eyebrows at Pete, like he knew Pete was trying to distract him but was willing to allow it.

“Oh, yeah, but since then?”

“Nah. It always seemed like too much trouble.”

“Yeah,” Pete said, “I know what you mean. But have you ever known any other Guides who did?”

“Sure, one or two. You?”

“Just Mikey. But he’s sibling-bonded, so I guess it’s different.”

Jon nodded. “I guess it would be.” 

“I don’t suppose any of those Guides you knew were with another Guide, though.”

“That seems even more unlikely than a Guide making it work with a mundane,” Jon said. He looked piercingly at Pete. “Do you like one of the Guides here? Is that what this is about?” He grinned. “Is it Linda?”

“No,” said Pete quickly. “It’s no one here. Um.”

“Oh,” Jon breathed. “It’s Mikey, isn’t it?” Pete blushed, and Jon smirked. “Well, it could be worse. You already know Mikey won’t have problems with his Sentinel. And you’re not assigned to one Sentinel right now, either. You’re about as free as you can be to do your own thing.”

“Yeah,” Pete sighed, regretting the distraction method he’d impulsively chosen. “But he lives three hours from here. I should give up on the whole idea.”

Jon smiled sympathetically. “You never know what could happen,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Pete said doubtfully. The washing machine beeped and he jumped up to move the clothes into the dryer, pretending to be so absorbed in the task that he’d lost track of the conversation.

***

Pete dreamed. Afterwards, he couldn’t remember what had happened, or anything much about the dream at all, except the way he’d felt alone and scared and helpless. He woke up to Edward saying his name, over and over.

Pete jerked upright, feeling panicky. Were they supposed to be talking? What if Edward got in trouble for being out of bed? Then he calmed down a little and remembered where he was. Walter Reed. The apartment he shared with the other Guides. Right.

“Did I wake you up?” he asked.

“You were thrashing around, and sort of crying out,” Edward said. “Well, not really crying. I didn’t mean that. Whatever. You just seemed upset.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you okay?”

Pete leaned back against his pillows, shoving them into a more comfortable shape. He’d stopped shaking, although sweat was making his skin feel clammy. “I’m fine,” he said. “It was just a bad dream.”

“‘Cause if you want to talk about it... I mean, in the morning, maybe...”

“I’m fine,” said Pete, and he pulled the covers over himself again.

In the morning, Pete didn’t mention the dream and neither did Edward. At the earliest opportunity, Pete found an excuse to go and see Patrick.

He walked into Patrick’s room, saying, “Hey, what’s the...” and was cut short when a plate came flying towards him at head height. It was quickly followed by a tray, and a plastic cup full of apple juice. At least, Pete hoped it was apple juice.

He fell back against the wall, putting his hands up over his head. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey! Hey! What the hell?”

The barrage stopped and Pete peered out from behind his hands. The bed was empty, and the table had been violently shoved away. Pete could see Patrick crouched on the other side of the bed, trying to get back on his feet. One of the monitors was beeping shrilly; Patrick must have knocked something loose.

“Patrick?” Pete said, standing up slowly.

Patrick leaned against the bed and looked towards him. “Pete?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah,” Pete said. “Who did you think it was?” He asked the question rather sharply, but as he took in Patrick’s shaken expression, he realised that Patrick really had had no idea.

“I don’t know,” Patrick said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You just came in, I didn’t know... I have to know who’s coming into the room. I need to know.”

Shit. Pete remembered every other time he’d come into Patrick’s room, when he’d been with someone who knocked and said who they were. He felt a surge of anger. Would it have killed one of those people to tell him what was going on? He felt bad for scaring Patrick, but more selfishly, he was pissed off because if this incident got back to G-TAC, it could cause problems for him.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t know,” Pete said, feeling about two inches tall, especially once he smothered his frustration enough to hide it from Patrick.

“It’s fine,” Patrick said. “I’m fine. It’s not your fault.” He swung his legs back onto the bed and tried to pull the sheets up, but they were badly twisted and Patrick couldn’t really do it with one hand. He tugged at the sheets ineffectually. 

“Can I help?” Pete offered. Patrick didn’t look up, but gave a jerky nod, so Pete stepped away from the wall and grabbed the blanket.

Viv arrived then to reattach Patrick’s IV. Or rather, what actually happened was she knocked on the door and said, “It’s Viv, Patrick, is everything okay?” while Pete felt angry and stupid all over again. Now he was paying attention, he could see the way Patrick tensed at the knock, his eyes widening in alarm until he heard the familiar voice.

Once she was gone, Pete sat in the chair by Patrick’s bed. “I thought your hand was injured or something, and they couldn’t fix it,” he said. “But that’s not what happened, is it?”

Patrick shrugged. “I’m not actually supposed to talk about it,” he said. “It was a classified mission. Officially, I wasn’t ever there.”

“Where?”

Patrick gave him a look. “I can’t tell you,” he said patiently, as though Pete were a slow-witted child. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. We obviously didn’t achieve our objectives. I was the only one to survive.”

Pete opened his mouth, closed it without speaking. There was nothing he could think of to say that wouldn’t sound stupid. “Do you need more to eat?” he asked eventually, gesturing to the remains of Patrick’s breakfast scattered all over the floor.

Patrick shook his head. “I haven’t been very hungry.”

Pete started clearing up the mess on the floor. “I’ll have to go get a mop or something,” he said, once he’d picked up all the pieces of broken plate. “Where do you suppose...” He didn’t bother to finish the question once he glanced up and took in Patrick’s blank look. The other man clearly had no idea where the cleaning equipment might be kept, or who he should ask. “I’ll figure it out.”

***

There was another email from Mikey, the next time Pete managed to check. Only a short one, though. It said, _Can you get on AIM on this thing? I’ll be online tonight between 7 and 8_

It was already 7:45. Once Jon had given the okay, Pete got a chat room set up and was messaging Mikey in record time.

wentzp: mikey whats up?

mikey: Hey Pete. It’s nice to talk to you. Or, u know what I mean.

wentzp: yeah

mikey: How was your day?

wentzp: nothing unusual 

wentzp: fucking shit up like always.

mikey: I’m sure that’s not true.

mikey: What’s it like, not having one Sentinel? Is it really annoying?

wentzp: its okay most of them are nice enough. its a lot of work though they all sort of assume that they’re your only responsibility

mikey: Yeah

wentzp: and its not like weve got medical training or anything but half of them assume we’re nurses as well as guides.

mikey: Sucks

mikey: Gee has this idea that we should volunteer with this disability respite care program, use our degrees a little bit and convince our caseworkers it would be a better career path for us. But people never quite seem to get what is and isn’t in your job description.

mikey: I mean, half the time I don’t even know.

wentzp: exactly 

mikey: So, are there any hot young Sentinels out there?

wentzp: what?

wentzp: maybe

wentzp: no, not really

mikey: Geez

wentzp: i dont think i really want to be with another sentinel like that, you know?

mikey: I didn’t mean to put you on the spot or anything

wentzp: i mean its just too much. they become your whole work life and your love life and you never get a break

wentzp: oh no, its cool. i hadnt really given it any thought, thats all

wentzp: i think i’d rather never date again than be with another sentinel. which is probably what will happen because it’s not like most sentinels are cool with their guides dating other people

mikey: Yeah, and even if they are it can be pretty hard for mundanes to understand the obligation you have to your Sentinel.

mikey: I’ve dated dozens of girls but it’s never been anything serious. Gerard really lucked out with Lindsey. Most people just assume you can’t return the commitment and they don’t bother.

wentzp: that sucks. i bet its a bit easier for gerard, too, being a sentinel.

wentzp: or maybe not. i dont know. forget i said that

mikey: No, you’re probably right. I’d never say that to him, because he can’t change it and it would just make him sad, but. Yeah.

wentzp: yeah. so just girls huh?

mikey: Well, I’ve only ever dated girls.

mikey: I guess I could date a guy, in theory. If they were the right guy.

wentzp: yeah

mikey: What you really need is someone who gets that you have to put your Sentinel first, but that doesn’t mean you don’t care about them too.

wentzp: yeah.

wentzp: shit, is that all? lol

mikey: *bg*

***

For all that Pete was fully aware of the impossibility of anything happening between him and Mikey, their conversation left him in an excellent mood. He was cheerful all evening, while he caught up on timesheets and helped clear up the dinner dishes and watched TV with the others. Even though he sat for a good twenty minutes with his timesheet, debating whether to cross of ‘Lowery’ and write ‘Wentz’ in instead, and eventually decided that he didn’t dare, his spirits remained high. He was in such a good mood that Edward commented on it.

“You’re awfully happy tonight,” he said during a commercial break.

“Huh?” said Pete. “Shouldn’t I be?”

“Sure, it’s just...” Edward looked at Linda and Sharon for support. “You’re usually – not, so much.”

Pete shrugged. “Okay. So I had a good day.”

“That’s good,” Linda said warmly. “It can be hard to settle into a new place.”

The conversation was really starting to bother Pete. He could see the way they were trying to pretend not to look at him. He didn’t like being the centre of attention, not like this. He got up, the feeling of being watched filling him with restless energy, and moved into the kitchen. 

Linda followed him. Edward and Sharon stayed on the couch, chatting about the show they were watching. It was as close to a private moment as they could really manage, which Pete figured was why Linda had chosen it.

“You know, if there’s ever anything you need to talk about, Pete, I’ll always listen.”

That was just too much for Pete to bear. “So now you’re a shrink?” he asked, kind of aggressively. He immediately felt bad, because being mean to Linda felt a lot like kicking a puppy. 

“Well, no, but...” Linda glanced over at Sharon, who was gesturing at the TV and saying “Everyone on this show ought to be dead, they’re all so freaking stupid,” and Edward, who said, “I used to have a haircut like that, but it got too hard to maintain.”

“Since you’d have to go through your caseworker to talk to an actual psychiatrist, it might be better than nothing?” Linda suggested.

Pete pulled away. It was starting to sound a bit too real, like they didn’t just see him as a guy with a few quirks, but as someone with real, serious issues. Had the three of them talked and agreed that Linda should approach him because she was ‘the sensitive one’?

“Sharon mentioned you were in some kind of... boot camp school thing, as a kid. Is that right?”

“Look, Linda...” There was probably a nice way for Pete to make his point, but he was damned if he could think of it. “Go away.” 

Linda sighed and stepped back. “Okay. I’ll leave you be. But we all want to help, Pete. If you’ll let us.”

Pete nodded at her, relieved, and went to bed earlier than the others.

The dream was clearer this time, full of faces and places that Pete had hoped never to see again. He didn’t wake up to Edward calling his name, but to Edward shaking his shoulder.

“Fuck!” Pete gasped, scrambling upright and flailing at Edward’s hands.

“Sorry,” Edward said, jumping back, “sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Pete leaned against the wall and tried to breathe. Edward flicked on the bedside lamp and sat down on the edge of his bed, peering at Pete.

“I was dreaming again, huh,” Pete said once he could manage to speak.

“You were yelling, and you banged into the wall. You might have woken up Sharon and Linda too.”

Edward’s words were confirmed when the glow of the light in the main room showed under the bedroom door. Then someone tapped at the door.

“Is everything okay?” Linda asked.

“Yeah,” Pete said. “Fine. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“Seriously, are you okay?” Edward asked. “That’s two nights in a row. Is this, like, normally a problem for you? Because I’m not as young as you are. I need my sleep.”

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine!” Pete snapped, panicking a little bit because everything was definitely not fine, and he didn’t know what to do about it. It would have to be fine, though. He’d need to figure something out. “It’s just been a difficult couple of weeks, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Edward didn’t look reassured. “Maybe you should talk to your caseworker or something.”

Pete couldn’t hold in a scoff. “My caseworker? Are you fucking kidding?”

Edward shifted, like he was uneasy with giving the advice, but he didn’t take it back. “It seems like you need some help. Like, real help. More than we can give you. Maybe you need to talk to someone. You said your Sentinel just died, right? That’s rough.”

“Ugh,” Pete said. He rolled over and hoped Edward would get the hint

“If you want me to be there when you talk to your caseworker...”

“No!” Pete said immediately, sitting up. “I don’t, and don’t you fucking dare say anything either. Just. Let me handle it, okay?”

“Fine!” Edward said, eyebrows raised. 

Pete settled back down on the bed and waited for Edward to turn off the lamp. He turned onto his side, even though he could only sleep on his back. He couldn’t have G-TAC wondering what his problem was, and if he didn’t want Edward blabbing to them he needed to stop being such a basket case. Starting with no more nightmares.


	4. Chapter 4

Pete ran into Viv the next day as she was giving medications. “Don’t talk to me,” she said brusquely, concentrating fiercely on the chart. She picked up one pill bottle and frowned down at it.

“Damn computer system,” she grumbled, putting the bottle down and moving on to the next one. “You’d think it should be capable of keeping track of who has and hasn’t been discharged.” She took the medication into the room and Pete was left in the hallway with the medication cart.

He looked at the bottle sitting on the edge of the cart, the label only half visible. He glanced towards the room Viv had disappeared into and, on a whim, turned the bottle around with the tip of one finger. He was pretty sure he was breaking all kinds of rules by even touching the drugs, but he could read the bottle’s label now. Valium, like he’d thought. He glanced at the patient’s room again. Viv was still inside. He looked up and down the hallway. It was empty.

Viv was busy, and distracted with her work. The medication wasn’t even supposed to be there, according to what she’d said, so she probably wouldn’t notice if she came back and it was just... gone. No one would miss it.

Pete heard footsteps coming back from the room and before he could think twice, he wrapped his hand around the little bottle and pulled it to his side. 

Viv came out of the room, already reading the chart again. Pete smiled at her but she didn’t look up.

“Need any help?” he asked.

“No thanks,” Viv murmured.

“Okay, see you later,” Pete said cheerily, and went on down the hallway to Patrick’s room. He shoved the pill bottle into his pocket as he walked. He stopped outside Patrick’s room and remembered to knock and wait for Patrick to answer before going in.

Patrick didn’t answer, though. Pete’s knock was followed by silence, and after a few seconds had passed he called out again. Nothing.

Pete gripped the doorframe. What was he supposed to do now? What if Patrick couldn’t answer for some reason, and he needed help? What if he was asleep, and Pete frightened him by going into the room? He edged forwards, feeling a sense of building frustration. He could go in and frighten Patrick and be that Guide who startled him into a flashback _twice_ , or he could go bother one of the nurses and be that Guide who bothered people who had better things to do.

Pete walked into the room, holding one hand up near his face in case Patrick threw his lunch tray at him again. Nothing came flying at his head, though, and Pete hesitantly said, “Patrick? It’s Pete.”

“I _know_ ,” Patrick said irritably. He wasn’t looking at Pete, but out the window, his fist clenched on top of the blanket. “I heard you the first dozen times.”

Then why didn’t you answer me, Pete wondered, but he didn’t say that. Patrick was clearly not in the mood.

“Okay,” Pete said, trying for a cheery tone. “I wasn’t sure. So, did you eat a bit more today?”

Patrick glowered and Pete knew he’d misstepped. “Um,” he said, trying to think of a way to gracefully change the topic. “It’s a bit warmer outside today. Hey, have you just been sitting inside all week? Maybe you should get some time outside. I mean, I bet you’d feel better. I could walk with you or something. If you want.”

Patrick sighed, like Pete was forcing him to reply with his complete inability to shut up. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Getting a nice walk out in the fresh air won’t grow my hand back, will it?”

“Come on, man,” Pete said, growing tired of Patrick’s gloominess. “It’s not all bad. Think about it, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yes,” Patrick replied, with a precision that Pete was wise enough to find concerning. “I am. I have – I _had_ five friends who weren’t as lucky as me. And every time I look at my s-stump,” he paused to bark out a faint, hysterical laugh, “I remember what happened to them, and to me. So don’t tell me how lucky I am, okay? I know.”

In the silence that fell on the room, a pin dropping would have sounded like a thunderclap. When someone knocked at the door, it felt to Pete like a cataclysmic event, but Patrick only called “Yeah?” in the same weary tone he always used.

It was Aaron. “Hey, Patrick,” he said. “Pete. It’s good you’re back. Having a consistent regime for treatment can be really beneficial.”

It didn’t seem all that beneficial to Pete. It felt like the most uncomfortable hour of his life.

***

Pete had told himself that he wasn’t actually going to use the Valium. Just keep it on hand in case he needed it. Of course he was kidding himself, and on some level he’d been aware of that, but it had made it easier to take the plunge and steal the pills. The awkward thing with Patrick had left him feeling rattled, and the rest of the day had been no less stressful. He was starting to think almost longingly of the bottle in his pocket.

It was a relief to walk back to the apartment at the end of the day, even though it was his turn to cook and clean the kitchen. The others would end up helping anyway, they always did, and they were easy company. So it was a rather unpleasant surprise to reach the apartment and find Ridley and Nagel inside.

Pete gulped and backed up to stand by the front door. Edward sidled over to Pete and leaned towards him to murmur, “Room inspection.” Pete nodded as calmly as he could manage, but internally he was beginning to panic. Room inspection? Why? Had Viv noticed the missing Valium? Did they suspect Pete of taking it? He put a hand over the bottle still sitting in his pocket, then forced himself to pull it away. They might not know. He needed to play it cool.

It looked like they’d already gone through the kitchen and living room. All the cupboard doors were open and the couch cushions looked like they’d been moved around. He could see through the open door to the room he shared with Edward, where Nagel was opening the drawers of the bedside table and Ridley was going through the closet.

“I heard that Sandburg wants to change the regulations so that once Guides are out of training, they choose where they live if they don’t live with a Sentinel,” Nagel said loudly. “What do you lot think of that?”

Pete glanced quickly at the others. None of them answered Nagel’s question. Nagel rummaged through Pete’s underwear, and Pete wondered if he’d be able to run a quick load of laundry once they were gone.

“You’d like that, eh, Linda? Having your very own apartment to live in? No room inspections, no rules to worry about?”

Linda looked at the other Guides for help. She was the youngest and most timid of them, so of course she would be the one Nagel decided to single out. They all stared back helplessly. “No, sir?” she tried.

“No?” Nagel closed all the drawers and stood up, eyes wide. “Really? You don’t think that sounds pretty nice?”

Linda’s face said ‘oh, shit,’ as clearly as if it was written there in permanent marker. Everything was silent for a second or two, and then Sharon said, “We all enjoy your company so much, sir, we’d miss you terribly if you were gone,” in a voice so devoid of inflection it was almost robotic.

Nagel turned towards her with a gleeful expression, but it was at that moment that Ridley called out from the bedroom. Pete tensed up, because those were his jeans and his corduroy jacket Ridley was handling, and there was obviously a problem. What had he done?

“What is it?” Nagel asked, joining Ridley in front of the closet. “Oh. Who doesn’t know how to hang their clothes up properly?”

The other three Guides all turned their heads to look at Pete. Nagel was looking at him too, clearly waiting for an answer. Pete cleared his throat.

“My fault, sir,” he said. He felt a shudder across his shoulders and down his arms; the first rush of adrenaline.

Nagel looked at Ridley with raised eyebrows; Ridley looked back gormlessly. “Well?” Nagel said after a minute. 

“Uh,” Ridley said. He waved Pete over. “So, you’ve got to sort the clothes by type...”

“Christ,” Nagel snapped, and in a lower voice he added, “you’re fucking useless, kid.” He swept all the clothes out of the closet in one movement and dumped them on the floor. Edward made a small, wounded sound as his carefully pressed linen shirts landed on the floorboards, but he didn’t move.

“Fix this up. Properly, this time,” Nagel said severely.

“Yes, sir,” said Pete, trying to pretend he wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack. He’d forgotten it could be like this; this was why he’d been so desperate to get out of the Navy. The micromanagement and the complete lack of individuality. Bullshit questions that were designed to be unanswerable. Trent had been bad, but not that bad. He hadn’t cared how Pete had organised the house. He’d given Pete hell if he didn’t meet Trent’s needs, but he’d left it entirely up to Pete how he chose to accomplish that.

Pete picked up a pair of pants and a shirt and tried to remember how they were supposed to go. Edward always arranged his clothes perfectly; too bad all his clothes had been dumped on the floor along with Pete’s. He glanced sideways at Ridley, who was slowly turning red with humiliation, and put both hangers on the rail.

“Your pants go on the right, not the left,” Ridley barked. “And the shirt should face the other way. Are you trying to fuck up?”

Pete breathed hard through his nose and moved everything around, the shaking in his hands growing worse. It was looking uncertain as to whether he was about to break down or tell Ridley to go fuck himself; he couldn’t afford to do either. He added more clothes, and he must have got it right because after a few seconds Ridley and Nagel moved off to check Sharon and Linda’s room. Pete heard Edward walk over.

“Let me help,” Edward offered, and Pete nodded again, even though what he really wanted was to be left alone. 

“You okay?” Edward asked quietly. Pete nodded again. He couldn’t make himself speak, even though he knew it was okay. He knew it was absurd, but he couldn’t shake the fear that Edward would get in trouble for talking to him, or that he might get in trouble for nodding back.

“Did you say something?” Edward asked after a minute. Pete shook his head, but he realised he’d been muttering to himself. Counting under his breath, counting points. He shook his head harder. He needed to get a grip.

“I think they’re about to leave,” Edward said. “Are you okay to finish this up?”

Pete nodded again. Most of the mess was cleaned up, and he knew what to do now. Edward left the room and Pete listened to the caseworkers talking in the main room. He waited until they had closed the front door behind them, and stepped to the other side of the bedroom where he was out of sight. He pulled the pill bottle out of his pocket and opened it.

It wasn’t full, but there were at least a dozen pills inside. He’d been hoping for more, but right now he only needed one. He shook it out onto his palm and put it in his mouth, swallowing it dry.

“Pete, are you okay?” Edward called. 

Pete fumbled the lid back onto the bottle. “Yeah,” he called. He stuffed the bottle into the toe of a sock and put it in the very back of his sock drawer. He wondered how long it would take for the Valium to take effect. 

Pete walked out into the main room. “What do you guys want for dinner?” he asked, forcing his face into a smile. It felt a little easier already.

***

That night, Pete slept soundly. He woke up in the morning feeling slightly groggy from the after effects of the Valium, but it was a substantial improvement on waking up shaking and crying from nightmares with Edward giving him weird looks.

He’d thought that it would help, give him a boost, that the full night’s sleep and relief from stress would leave him feeling refreshed, but it didn’t work out that way. After the hours of not having to care about Patrick being a jerk and Nagel screaming in his face and memories surfacing and taking him unawares, it sucked to wake up and have all those things _matter_ again. Pete eyed the drawer where he’d hidden the pill bottle. 

He was alarmed by how tempting it was to take another one. He couldn’t do that. The effects were too obvious, and someone would notice. The bottle was only half full and he had no means of getting more. He needed to save them. He could so easily get used to not needing to care about everything.

This was going to be a problem. He’d have to stop, there was no other way around it. That night, he’d need to come back and get rid of the rest of the pills; flushing them would probably be best, so that they were out of reach of temptation. There would be no chance to do it before he went to start work – with four of them sharing one bathroom, privacy was hard to come by. He couldn’t afford to become dependent on them, or, God forbid, get caught.

Pete went to help Evan get dressed. Not an awesome start to the day. It didn’t really improve from there – physiotherapy with Patrick was just as uncomfortable as it had been the day before. He left straight afterwards to distract himself with other work. The afternoon passed uneventfully. Pete told himself that he was completely unaffected by the Sentinel who called him an incompetent halfwit, and the doctor who barked orders at him because he was standing in the wrong spot, and that he felt much better for not having to look at Patrick’s glowering, mopey face. He was fine. He was awesome.

Pete was anticipating leaving the hospital and going back to the apartments – where he still had several hours of work ahead, cooking for Evan and sitting with Terri – when Viv spotted him and called out.

“Hey, Pete. Can you take Patrick up to prosthetics? He’ll probably need a Guide while he meets the prosthetist.”

Damn. “One of my other Sentinels is sort of expecting me...” Pete said.

“It won’t kill him to wait thirty minutes,” said Viv, looking impatient. “Come on, Pete, you’re the only Guide around who isn’t busy. Go do your job.”

Pete had no choice, so he went to Patrick’s room and tapped at the door. “Hey,” he called. “Patrick? It’s Pete. You’re supposed to be meeting your prosthetist now, or something?”

Patrick didn’t reply, but stepped into view, arms folded across his chest and shoulders hunched. He walked towards Pete, then past him out into the hallway without speaking.

“Okay,” said Pete. “Do you know where we’re going? I’m not sure, but Viv said it’s upstairs.”

Patrick didn’t answer, but led the way to an elevator. When Pete peered at Patrick’s face, he could see that the other man looked tense and unhappy, lost in thought, and he decided that it was no good trying to force Patrick into a conversation he was obviously not in the mood for. They went up to the prosthetist’s office in silence.

The prosthetist’s name was Dr Samuels. She was a short woman with honey brown hair, rather young for a doctor, Pete thought. She greeted Patrick with a smile, shaking his hand. She nodded to Pete and got them both sitting down in front of her desk.

“Let’s get started,” she said. “I’m going to need to examine your arm, Patrick, is that okay?”

Patrick was stiff, but he nodded and held out his left arm. Samuels unwrapped the bandages around it while Patrick turned his head away. Pete wondered whether Patrick would prefer he not look, either. He remembered Patrick’s first session with the physio, where he’d told Pete he hated having an audience for this sort of thing. But in the end, Pete gave in to curiosity. 

There was nothing remarkable about it. The stitches had been removed but he could still see where they’d been. Samuels hmmed over it and eventually said, “Well, this all looks pretty good. No sign of swelling. It’s well-shaped. We’ll be able to take an impression today.”

She took a tape measure and wrapped it around Patrick’s arm a few inches from the end.

“I thought it would take longer. For it to heal,” said Patrick.

“Did your surgeon explain the procedure to you?” Samuels asked. 

“Only briefly.”

Samuels nodded. “Okay. Well, there’s no definitive point at which we’d consider the residual limb ‘healed’. You will notice ongoing changes to it throughout your lifetime. That means that you will continue to outgrow prosthetics and require replacements, so you’ll need to continue consulting with me or another prosthetist to ensure that you’re not using a prosthesis that’s become unsuitable.”

“Okay,” said Patrick, looking rather dazed.

“You can expect to need a new prosthesis every few years. They tend to wear out at about that point anyway, particularly if they’re heavily used.” Samuels waited, and Patrick nodded. She marked Patrick’s arm with a permanent marker, then took what looked like a small silicone sock. She rolled it over the end of Patrick’s arm and felt around it. “Does that feel okay?” she asked. “Is it too tight?”

Patrick shifted in his seat, his face looking drawn. “I’m not sure, I think my dials are...”

Pete shifted over to take Patrick’s hand and link up. Samuels waited for them. “It’s important that the fit is comfortable when you’re at your baseline level, but not too loose,” she said. “Take a moment. I can get a larger casting sock if we need one.”

Patrick’s dials were edging upwards – he had to be stressed. Pete helped him ease his sense of touch down to normal, and Patrick nodded. “It feels fine,” he said.

“Good,” said Samuels. She made a few more marks on the sock and began to slide it off. “Now. What is it, exactly, that you’re looking for in a prosthesis?”

Patrick blinked, not seeming to understand. “I want... what do you mean? Hand shaped?”

Samuels smiled a little bit. “You can get a cosmetic prosthetic, if you choose,” she said. She began to use scissors to trim the sock along the lines she’d drawn. “The technology for them is becoming quite sophisticated, so we should be able to match the shape and skin tone of your remaining hand very closely. But a prosthesis like that is typically not functional.”

“Meaning?”

Samuels held out the sock. “Here. You need to check that you can put this on and remove it by yourself.”

Patrick slid the sock into place over his arm, and Samuels added, “A cosmetic prosthetic does not, as a rule, include mechanics that mimic the functioning of a real hand. It can’t be used to pick up or hold something.”

“Oh. So it’s like a hand sculpture. Form over function.”

Samuels shrugged. “If you decide that’s the right option for you, the form _is_ the function,” she pointed out.

“What else is there?”

Satisfied that Patrick could handle the sock without assistance, Samuels fitted a sort of screw to the end. “This is where the sock will be attached to the prosthesis,” she explained. “Now, you might prefer something more like this.” She picked up something from the desk. It wasn’t attached to a sock, but Pete could see where it could be connected to one. It had two... fingers, he supposed... which could be separated or brought together in a pincer grip.

Patrick didn’t seem impressed. “It looks like something off an automated assembly line,” he said gloomily. “Those are my options? A hand that might as well be made out of wood, or one that makes me look like a freak?”

Samuels didn’t acknowledge the frustration in Patrick’s voice. She took a roll of clingwrap and began wrapping it around the sock on Patrick’s arm. “There are alternatives which attempt to combine the best features of both,” she said gently. “But that is reflected in the cost, and the VA would not cover all of it. It’s up to you, if you want to pursue something like that.”

Patrick clenched his jaw. Samuels soaked strips of plaster wrap in a bowl, and began to wrap his arm. “It might help us to work out what will suit you best if you can tell me a little bit about what you’d like to be able to do,” she suggested.

“What, like feed myself? Tie my own shoelaces?”

Samuels exchanged a glance with Pete, who shrugged. He wasn’t going to speak up; he’d learned his lesson about that yesterday.

“This will need a few minutes to dry,” she said.

Once the cast was finished they headed back to Patrick’s room. Samuels offered to organise a temporary prosthesis, something for Patrick to practice with so he could get a better idea of what he wanted. It seemed like a good idea to Pete.

“So, this is good,” Pete said, putting false enthusiasm into his voice. 

“Is it?”

“Well, it’s one step closer to getting your life back to normal.”

“Right,” said Patrick. “As good as new, huh?”

“Well, no, I don’t mean that, but... you’ll be able to do stuff again. Samuels said you’ll be able to do nearly all everyday tasks...”

“Yeah,” Patrick said as they arrived back at his room. “That _is_ my lifelong dream. _Almost_ being able to take care of myself.”

“It’s not so bad,” Pete said stupidly.

“You know what, Pete?” Patrick said, turning on him. “You don’t have a clue what it’s like, so why don’t you shut up?”

Pete stepped back to the doorway. 

“I’m probably going to be discharged from the Army, and I had plans for what I wanted to do with my life once that happened, but those plans involved me having both hands!” Patrick shouted, warming to the subject. “My life’s never going to be normal again, and you stand there with your two hands and your happy smile telling me everything’s gonna be fine! No it’s not, Pete!”

It had been a long day, and Pete had had enough. “Why don’t you shut up, Patrick?” he snapped recklessly. He knew he should shut up, he _knew_ , but it felt far too good to lash out at someone, too good to stop, even if he knew he’d regret it later. “You want to sit there and have a cry about how your life’s so hard? You lost your hand? Big fucking deal!” He drew a deep breath but barrelled on before Patrick could get a word in. “You’ll get out of here and they’ll give you a prosthetic hand and a Guide to wait on your every whim. You won’t have to cook your own meals or dress yourself or wipe your own damn ass if you don’t want to! You think I’ve got it so good, huh, how about you try it for one fucking day?”

Patrick looked at Pete intently, a muscle in his jaw twitching, and at last he said, “Get out, Pete. I don’t want you here.”

***

Instead of going to make Evan’s dinner like he was supposed to, Pete went straight to his own bedroom and grabbed the pills. The other Guides weren’t there, were still out working, and the little apartment felt strange without the chatter of three other people filling it.

He swallowed a pill and put the bottle back in the drawer. Briefly he remembered that he’d been planning on getting rid of them, but he dismissed the idea. He couldn’t do that; he might need them. Probably would, in this shithole. He’d just have to figure something out.

Pete hurried to Evan’s room as his mood lifted and his worries disappeared. What did he care about Patrick anyway? The Sentinel wasn’t his problem. 

The next day was Saturday, which in theory was supposed to be an easy day. In reality, Sentinels still needed attention from a Guide, meals still needed to be cooked, and all the trivial tasks that tended to be neglected during the week needed to be caught up on.

At lunchtime, Jon asked Pete to come around for lunch as thanks for all the meals he’d made. “Look,” Jon said, bringing both plates over to the couch. “Two plates at once, and I haven’t even dropped anything!”

“Congratulations,” Pete said wryly. “I can see this is a big moment for you.”

Jon put the food down and sat down, lifting his bad leg up to balance it on the cushion he’d put on the coffee table. It still wasn’t completely fixed yet, he’d explained, but they’d taken the cast off and he could walk without crutches.

“Now it’s just a matter of relaxing for the next week or so until I get my marching orders,” said Jon, taking a massive bite of his sandwich.

“You think it’ll be that soon?” Pete asked. “I’d have thought you’d still have at least a month of physio ahead of you.”

“Yeah, at least. But I should be able to keep that regime up by myself, once they show me what to do. I doubt they’ll let me stick around here for too long.”

“Oh.” Pete started to eat his own sandwich, but he wasn’t as hungry as he had been. “That sucks.” The other Guides were nice enough, but Jon was the only one he’d consider a friend.

“You’ll have to give me your email address before I go.”

Pete nodded, but privately he was wondering how he’d send any emails with Jon gone.

“Speaking of which, you want to use the computer?”

Pete had been planning to send a quick email, but Mikey turned out to be online, so Pete sent him a chat message.

> wentzp: hey mikey i cant talk for long because im on my lunch break but i wanted to say hi. whats up?
> 
> mikey: PETE! It’s good to hear from you. How are things? Good, I hope.
> 
> wentzp: yeah i guess they are. sort of
> 
> mikey: What do you mean, sort of?
> 
> wentzp: no nothing. everythings fine
> 
> mikey: Dude, you sound like me.
> 
> wentzp: why whats wrong?
> 
> mikey: I KNEW something was wrong.
> 
> mikey: LOL
> 
> wentzp: no i meant that YOU were insisting something was wrong and then you said i sounded like you...
> 
> wentzp: you know what I mean. damn it mikey.
> 
> mikey: Yeah, ok. I know.
> 
> wentzp: so?
> 
> mikey: Shit, I didn’t mean to turn this into a conversation about my problems. You’re not off the hook, you know.
> 
> wentzp: i know. spill
> 
> mikey: It’s just what I sound like when Gerard’s doing the ultra-protective Sentinel thing. 
> 
> mikey: You know, all the ‘you can tell me anything, Mikey, and I’ll do whatever I can to fix it’. Know what I mean?
> 
> wentzp: not really
> 
> mikey: I really shouldn’t be complaining about this.
> 
> wentzp: no its fine. i want you to tell me
> 
> mikey: It’s just that he’s looking for a problem he can fix, and usually I can’t give him one, and then I end up being the one comforting him about not being able to help me, and it’s a pain. I’m dealing with my own stuff, you know? I don’t want to deal with his too.
> 
> wentzp: yeah
> 
> wentzp: shit
> 
> mikey: So I was worried when you kept saying you were fine that I was being that guy who wants you to explain how he can help so he can feel better
> 
> mikey: I promise to offer absolutely no helpful advice or suggestions if you tell me what’s bothering you
> 
> wentzp: thats very kind of you
> 
> mikey: Thanks. So?
> 
> mikey: Or, I mean. It doesn’t have to be me. Someone else might have actual helpful advice, for real.
> 
> wentzp: i doubt it but thanks ill think about what you said
> 
> wentzp: id better go now theres still work to do. talk to you soon?
> 
> mikey: Yeah, you bet.

Pete shut the computer down and realised that while he’d been chatting with Mikey, Jon had cleaned up the dishes from the lunch he’d made, which didn’t really make him feel any less shitty about himself.

“You’re looking kind of serious over there,” said Jon.

“Sorry I left you with all the cleaning up.”

“Don’t worry about it. I owe you one. Or, you know, more than one. It’s fine.”

Pete nodded, but he must have looked pretty gloomy, because Jon said, “You want to talk about it?”

“I yelled at Patrick yesterday, got really pissed off with him.”

Jon nodded and looked concerned. “Really? Is it going to be a problem?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s going to complain to anyone about it. I just feel bad – he’s been through a lot of stuff and everything’s changed for him, and I said it was no big deal.”

“Well, he might not have taken it that way.”

Pete snorted. “Unlikely, since I literally said ‘so you lost your hand? Big fucking deal.’”

Jon’s eyes widened. “Dude.”

“I know.”

“Have you talked to him since then?”

“No. I’m too much of a wimp. But I can’t avoid him forever. Unless I can get Linda or someone to trade one of their Sentinels. Maybe I should ask them.”

Jon shook his head. “It can’t be that bad, can it? He probably can’t fuck you up too badly, what with only having one hand.”

Pete gaped at him. “I cannot believe you just said that.”

“Me neither, actually.” Jon looked rather unrepentant, but said, “Sorry. Poor taste.”

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know. If you were worried that he’d do something to you, I’d say sure, try to trade him off with one of the others, but I thought you two got along. So... you could apologise?” 

“What if he doesn’t accept my apology?” Pete asked, playing with the cuff of his uniform shirt nervously. Talking the problem out with Jon was making him realise that he wasn’t worried about what Patrick would do, he was worried that Patrick wouldn’t like him anymore. When had he started caring about that?

“Then you’d have to leave him alone, I guess,” Jon said, shrugging. “But you might feel better if you at least try to talk to him.” Jon looked at him thoughtfully. “Why’d you get so mad at him?”

“Oh, man, I don’t even know.”

“Well, if you figure it out, and you think he’d listen, it might be worth talking to Patrick about it.”

“What, like, ‘sorry I said your permanent disability is better than being a Guide, it’s just that if I could trade places with you I think I probably would’?”

“Hmm,” said Jon. “I might not put it exactly like that.”

“You think?”

Jon kind of laughed, and then he said, “You feel angry most of the time, don’t you?” 

Pete looked at him. Jon shifted and added, “I mean, I’m not criticising. I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“Maybe I do,” Pete said. He could hear himself beginning to sound pissed off, which only seemed to amuse Jon.

“I just don’t think it’s anything to do with Patrick. Is it?” He looked piercingly at Pete, who glowered back. Fucking Guides. Between them and Sentinels, a guy could have no secrets at all.

“He’s a jerk,” Pete said, although he wasn’t sure he meant it. 

“Okay,” said Jon, with an irritatingly smug tone. “If you say so.”

***

Pete sidled up to the doorway of Patrick’s room like he thought he could take it by surprise. Not Patrick, that is, just the door. He knocked the knock of someone who doesn’t actually want to be heard.

“Yeah?” Patrick called.

“It’s Pete. Can I come in?”

Patrick didn’t answer straight away. “Why are you here, Pete?” he said at last, voice weary.

“I want to apologise. For yesterday.” Since Patrick was speaking to him, Pete decided he probably wouldn’t throw anything if he stuck his head into the room, and did so.

Patrick was sitting on his bed, dressed in track pants and a t-shirt. On his left arm he wore a prosthesis a bit like the one Samuels had shown them yesterday, with the claw-like hand. He had a guitar across his lap, and he was taking the strings off.

Pete stood in the doorway, waiting to see if Patrick was going to listen to him or send him away. “I didn’t know you played guitar,” Pete said stupidly.

Patrick raised his eyebrows at Pete, but didn’t bother to reply. He took one of the strings and began to reattach it awkwardly with one hand. It kept sliding loose and after debating with himself for a minute, Pete said, “Can I help?”

Patrick looked down at the guitar. “Fine,” he said guardedly. “Just put your finger... oh.” 

Pete put the end of the string through the peg hole and slid the peg in after it, while Patrick wound the other end around the tuning key. “You play too?” Patrick asked.

“Used to,” said Pete. “Bass guitar, actually, but yeah.” 

Patrick tightened the string and plucked it with his forefinger, tilting his head to listen. Pete wondered if he had perfect pitch. It was a little more common in Sentinels than other people. “Why’d you stop?” Patrick asked.

“Joined the Navy,” said Pete. Patrick nodded. He took the next string and they fitted it to the guitar just like the first. Pete realised what Patrick was doing; stringing the guitar with the thickest strings on the right instead of the left, so that a left-handed person could play it. 

It was clever. Pete quashed the impulse to wonder aloud whether it would work. Patrick didn’t need to hear his doubts.

“I’m sorry about what I said yesterday,” Pete said, realising that he’d told Patrick he’d come to apologise and then hadn’t actually done so. “I shouldn’t have... I was out of line.”

Patrick shrugged. “Whatever. Don’t worry about it.”

That wasn’t what Pete had thought Patrick would say. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you have to pretend everything’s fine,” he said. “I know you’re not... I mean, you don’t have to fake being okay.”

“You were angry with me,” Patrick said neutrally. “Because I get to choose what happens now, and I was trying to choose... nothing?” He glanced up at Pete, like he was checking to see whether he was right.

“I suppose so,” Pete said, because no matter how good a point Jon may have made about the source of Pete’s anger, there was no denying that he’d blown up at Patrick for a reason. 

“What would you do, if you were me?”

“I have no idea.”

Patrick nodded and swung the guitar around. All the strings were tuned, so he balanced the guitar on his lap and held the neck in his right hand.

“There’s a guitar pick in the case, can you grab it?” Patrick asked. Pete found it and held it so that Patrick could awkwardly, and with many failed attempts, grasp it between the pincers of the prosthetic arm. Pete wasn’t sure how well it would work; it didn’t seem like Patrick could hold the pick as securely as he needed to and he was still learning the movements to make the prosthesis grasp and release things. But Pete supposed it didn’t need to work perfectly; if this experiment was a success Patrick could probably get a more appropriate prosthesis.

Patrick fingered a sequence of chords on the guitar neck several times without strumming, concentrating to get them right, and finally he lifted up his left arm and began to play.

It wasn’t going to work. Pete could tell immediately. There was no flexibility in the wrist of the prosthesis and so all the movement had to come from Patrick’s elbow. After a few bars his shoulders were already slumping. He played for a few more seconds and then the pick slipped free and fell into the sound hole.

“Shit,” Patrick muttered, looking down at the guitar.

“Want some help?” Pete took the guitar and tilted it from side to side, trying to get the pick to slide out again. He’d never had this issue with his bass.

“Fucking acoustics,” Patrick muttered.

Pete gave the guitar a shake, listening for the rattle and trying to figure out where the pick was. “So what’s the verdict?”

Patrick sighed. “It’s a bit too heavy,” he said, gesturing to the prosthesis. “And Dr Samuels said the permanent prosthesis would be even heavier. I wouldn’t be able to play for long like that.”

“Yeah. You could talk to her. Maybe she can get you something lighter?”

“Maybe.”

Pete hesitated, then dared to ask, “Why didn’t you bring this up when you saw her? I didn’t even know you played guitar. She might have some suggestions.”

“I dunno. I was worried she’d tell me it couldn’t be done.”

Pete understood that. Sometimes, no answer was safer than an answer you didn’t want. Even so, he asked, “If she did, what would change?”

Patrick didn’t answer, but he looked thoughtful. Something small and plastic hit Pete’s knee, and he scrambled for the pick triumphantly. “Got it!” he exclaimed, holding it up. Patrick looked at him, and he felt foolish. “Uh. Never mind,” he said.

“You know,” said Patrick, “the worst thing is, what went wrong on that mission wasn’t even anyone’s fault. No one screwed up, it was just terrible luck. There’s no one I can blame. Even if there was, they’d probably be dead and I wouldn’t be able to stay angry with them. It’s hard to hold a grudge against a dead person.”

“I know.”

“So there’s just nothing to do with all that anger. I can’t even feel angry that I can’t play anymore, what’s the point? It’s too late.”

“Maybe you could sing,” Pete suggested.

“Sing?”

“Yeah. I bet you could. You’ve probably got a great voice.”

“No, I can’t. And it’s not the same. Shut up.”

Pete grinned, beginning to feel bolder. He was getting a better sense of when Patrick would and wouldn’t tolerate being pushed. 

“Move over,” Pete said, nudging Patrick with his shoulder. He put the guitar between them, resting half on his leg and half on Patrick’s, with the neck sticking out to the right. “Come on,” said Pete, strumming with his left hand a couple of times. It really did feel strange. “What were you playing before? _The Stars and Stripes Forever_?”

“You fucking philistine,” Patrick gasped, grabbing the neck of the guitar. “Pay attention. It’s time someone taught you about proper music.”

***

Edward came in for dinner late one night, and sat at the kitchen table playing with his fork, a distant look in his eyes.

“What happened?” asked Sharon.

“Julia asked me to bond with her.”

“Seriously?” Pete asked.

“Oh my God, Edward, that’s amazing! What did you say?” Linda squealed.

“Seriously?” Pete repeated.

“I said yes, of course. I didn’t think she’d actually ask me, you know. We haven’t known one another all that long.” Edward reached to pour himself a glass of water and nearly knocked the pitcher over. Pete grabbed it and poured a glass for him.

“It’s about time she did,” Sharon said. “Never seen two people as stupid over one another as you two.”

That was probably because no one dared be stupid around Sharon for very long, Pete thought privately, but she had a point.

“When are you going to do it?” Linda asked.

Edward took a long sip of water. “I have no idea,” he said. “We’d need an entire day. How can I leave you guys to manage everything for an entire day? No, it would be longer than that, because afterwards... How long would it take for G-TAC to replace me?”

“A couple of days, at least,” Sharon said. “We could probably manage for that long.”

“They won’t organise a replacement sooner, if we ask them?” Pete wondered.

They all exchanged a glance. “Maybe,” Linda said, but Sharon was shaking her head.

“They can’t be trusted,” she said. “If we did ask, they’d probably interfere somehow to stop it happening. Better just to do it – they can’t undo it once it’s done.”

“Jon could help,” said Pete. “He’s off the crutches now, so he can do more. He would, if we asked him.”

“Can you talk to him?” asked Sharon. “You two are friends.”

Pete agreed. They decided that the bonding should happen next Sunday, as the quietest day of the week, and Edward divided up his Sentinels – minus Julia – between the three of them. Pete tracked Jon down the next morning.

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” Jon said, forehead wrinkled with thought. “But I was going to come find you later and tell you – I’m heading out of here on Monday. Got my new assignment.”

He didn’t look all that happy about it. “Really?” said Pete. “You know what it is?”

“Oh, in Washington state. Some Sentinel named Ross.”

“You don’t seem thrilled.”

“My caseworker gave me the impression he’s a giant pain in the ass. Still, it will get me out of here. It’s been okay, but it can get kind of depressing.” 

Pete nodded. “I’ll miss hanging out,” he said.

“Me too,” Jon said with a smile. “We’ll have to make sure not to lose touch.”

Pete went across to see Patrick, who was the happiest Pete had seen him yet.

“I’m getting out of here!” said Patrick. “Tomorrow. They’re sending me across to one of the apartments, so I can keep working with the physio.”

“That’s awesome, Patrick! Wow, everyone’s on the move.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing.” Pete opened the door of Patrick’s closet. “You need a hand packing up your stuff? I mean – uh-” Pete realised what he’d said and stopped short, embarrassed, but Patrick didn’t seem to have noticed.

“There’s a suitcase down the bottom of the closet there. Everything should fit in it. Except for all those magazines my Mom keeps sending. I told her enough already, but...”

Once most of Patrick’s belongings were packed into the suitcase, Patrick had another appointment with the prosthetist. She had Patrick’s prosthetic arm and walked him through how to attach and use it.

“You’ll notice that it’s somewhat heavier than the temporary prosthesis,” Samuels said, checking that everything fitted like it should. “But it’s also stronger and can lift more weight. Your physiotherapist will work with you on learning to use it. Do you have any questions?”

Patrick looked at Pete, he wasn’t sure why – for reassurance, maybe. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last time,” he said. “About things I want to be able to do.” He looked at Pete again, and this time he was on the ball enough to nod back encouragingly.

Samuels listened intently as Patrick talked, and when he was finished she said, “Well, I’ll need to do some reading about that. I know that there’s no standard prosthesis that does what you want, so I think most musicians in your position make something themselves or have something custom made, but I’m sure I can find some possibilities. Let me get back to you next time we meet.”

With that, the appointment was over and Pete had to hurry to get through the rest of his work. He walked briskly through the ward, his eyes straying towards the storage room where the medications were kept almost without him meaning to. He only had one pill left now.

Pete stopped opposite the room and looked up and down the corridor. It was empty, and he sidled over to the storage room and tested the door handle.

It was locked, of course, and as his fingers closed around the handle he heard the sharp clicking of footsteps coming his way. He nearly sprang away from the door and resumed walking up the corridor, but _not too fast, not too fast_. 

He glanced back once he was far enough away, and saw Viv unlocking the storage room with a key hanging on a full keychain.


	5. Chapter 5

Pete turned up right on time to help Patrick get settled into his new apartment. It was already furnished and several boxes of Patrick’s belongings had arrived. Pete got to work unpacking them while Patrick opened the curtains and looked around.

“It’s nice,” Patrick said, once he’d finished looking through the other rooms. Pete had to agree. It was of a similar size to his own apartment but with one bedroom rather than two, and Patrick didn’t have to share it with anyone else. Patrick shut the front door and turned the lock, then tested the door to see if it would open. He put the chain on and then unlocked and opened the door to see how much give was in the chain. Pete tried not to watch too openly. No wonder Patrick had been so delighted to get out of the hospital, where people came and went at all hours. There were certainly no locks on the doors there.

Patrick helped him put away the last of his clothes, not that there was much left to do, and then he took out his guitar. Pete started making sandwiches for lunch, and Patrick started fiddling with the guitar strings again. This time Pete couldn’t really figure out what he was doing; he wasn’t tuning the strings to the standard pitch as far as he could tell. He tightened the lowest string as much as he could and alternated between humming the _Simpsons_ theme and _Greensleeves_.

“What are you doing?” Pete asked when he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Instead of replying, Patrick balanced the guitar in his lap, bracing the neck against the crook of his left elbow, and played a chord with his right hand. He played half a dozen more chords on the open strings, and then experimented with a few others.

“So you can still strum with your right hand,” Pete said.

Patrick nodded. “But I can’t play every chord this way,” he said, trying out a couple of chords that didn’t sound quite right. “I think if I were learning to play for the first time, that wouldn’t bother me, but...”

“You want to be able to play like you could before,” Pete said quietly, and Patrick nodded over the guitar, his shoulders hunched. “It would bother me too.”

Patrick got to work on the tuning keys again, returning the guitar to the original tuning. “Back to the drawing board,” he said.

“Is it really hard, fretting with your right hand?”

“It’s... different. I think I’ll get used to it, though. I’ll have to.”

Pete took one last look at the room, knowing that he had work he needed to do with the other Sentinels but not wanting to leave. He could come back, though. Now Patrick was in the same apartment complex as Pete, they could hang out together more. If Patrick wanted to.

“I’ll come back this evening, help you out with dinner,” Pete said.

“You don’t have to,” Patrick said at once.

“Oh, sure I do,” said Pete. “It’s part of my job.”

“Oh, right. Well, okay then,” said Patrick, and he smiled, but there was something off about it. Pete worried that he might have said something wrong, but there was no time to dwell on it.

***

There was an email from Mikey. Mikey insisted he wasn’t much of a bass player, but Pete knew that wasn’t true – he’d heard the songs, and anyway Mikey knew plenty of musicians, starting with the rest of his band. But Mikey said he’d talked to Frank and Ray who hadn’t really had any suggestions for Patrick, although they’d promised to keep thinking about it.

“Did you confess your undying love?” Jon teased gently once Pete had sent his reply. Ever since he’d figured out Pete’s crush on Mikey he’d been bugging Pete to make a move.

“No,” said Pete. “And stop saying shit like that. I’m not going to tell him.” He was going to get over his crush. Somehow. 

“You’re missing out,” said Jon.

“I’m never dating anybody, ever again,” Pete declared dramatically.

“Seriously?” Jon asked, his tone suggesting that he didn’t really believe it. Pete wasn’t even sure he believed himself. It just seemed like the thing to say.

“Yeah,” said Pete. “If I don’t date him I can’t fuck it up. Safest way.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Your face is stupid,” Pete retorted, because that was as much maturity as Jon deserved.

“I don’t get you,” Jon said, more seriously. “What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing,” Pete snapped. “I’m just trying to stop making incredibly bad choices, if that’s alright with you. I would have thought that was a good thing.”

“Cutting yourself off from people is not a good choice,” Jon said. “Not everyone is out to get you.”

Pete rolled his eyes. What he wanted to say was ‘Stop being so dramatic’, but what came out of his mouth was, “Shows how much you know.” And then Jon looked sad and Pete felt stupid, because that wasn’t true. He knew it wasn’t true. Who was being dramatic now?

“Hah,” Pete said, weakly. “Well. That’s. No, never mind.” He got up to leave, but Jon stopped him.

“You can tell me about it if you want,” he said.

“I don’t.”

Jon did him the kindness of not pointing out that that was clearly untrue. Not with his words, anyway, his face made his point loud and clear.

“I was a bad kid,” Pete said. He was probably going to regret telling Jon this. He used to have better self control, but now – first the pills, now this. Couldn’t seem to help himself. “You know, I cut classes, smoked. Smoked weed. Got into fights at school. After I learned I was a Guide, I was worse. Kind of angry, I guess.” Jon nodded. “My parents didn’t know what to do with me.” Pete looked down and tugged at the cuffs of his shirt. It hurt more to talk about this than he would have thought, even after all this time. “So they sent me away to this – um. Sort of a bootcamp thing. Not quite prison, and not quite school, but...”

Jon nodded again. He didn’t look very surprised, so maybe the other Guides had been gossiping about him. Pete couldn’t seem to make himself care. “You had to earn points, by following all the rules. Or if you tattled on other kids breaking the rules. Everyone was watching you all the time, to see you slip up so they could tell someone. And for so many points you’d be given levels, and for each level you got more privileges. You had to get a certain number of points to finish the program. But if you screwed up, they’d take points away. Every time you did something wrong, every mistake meant another day you were stuck there. Or week, or month. Whatever. If you messed up bad enough, they might take away all your points and make you start over at the beginning. Happened to me three times.”

“Fuck,” said Jon. “How did you get out?”

“Well, they can’t keep you against your will once you turn eighteen, so on my birthday I told them I was leaving. They put me in a car and drove me to the nearest G-TAC centre, and made me sign myself over.” Pete paused, thinking back on that day. “I could have refused, of course. My number hadn’t come up yet, I could have just left, but I wasn’t sure my parents would let me come home without finishing the program and I wasn’t sure where else I could go. And I knew eventually I’d probably end up at G-TAC anyway, so arguing about it just didn’t seem worth it.”

Jon nodded. “So you couldn’t trust anyone, and every mistake was a catastrophe,” he said.

“I’m not...” Pete sighed. He hadn’t told Jon the story so he could analyse him. “Everyone takes care of themselves first,” he said. “I don’t want to be convinced that it’s ‘worth it’, to ‘let someone in’ or whatever. It’s not. I’m doing fine. Just let me get on with it.”

Jon looked like he had a lot to say. Pete was pretty sure he actually, literally, bit his tongue. “Okay,” he said at last, with a nod. It looked kind of painful for him.

***

A week or so later, Pete was halfway through a particularly annoying day where everything had seemed to go wrong. He was hurrying back to the apartment to change out of his vomit-splattered shirt when he heard someone yelling his name.

“Pete! Hey, Pete!”

Pete looked towards the voice and saw someone waving at him. He peered at the figure, because he thought he recognised them but it didn’t make sense. Pete crossed the road to reach the other person.

“Holy shit. Mikey?”

It really was Mikey. Mikey and his brother Gerard who Pete had never really met but had seen once or twice. Mikey and Gerard standing here, on a sidewalk at Walter Reed.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Pete asked.

“Hey,” Mikey said, grinning. “We found you! Oh, my God. Gerard and I had a meeting with Susan,” he waved towards Gerard, who waved at Pete. “And we thought on our way back we’d come by and see you. We weren’t really expecting it to be so big. I sort of figured we’d just turn up and, like, find you in the foyer or something. We’ve been wandering around for nearly an hour.”

Pete couldn’t help but laugh when he heard that. “You dork,” he said affectionately. Mikey smiled and stuck out his tongue, his nose wrinkling up and making his glasses move. Pete was touched, because whatever Mikey said about being in the area, Pete knew that to get here from their meeting with the congresswoman they’d have to have driven at least an hour out of their way.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. 

Mikey moved in like he was going for a hug, then hesitated. “Yeah, you might not want to do that right now,” Pete suggested, and Mikey laughed. Pete tried not to feel too disappointed, because a hug would have been pretty nice. 

He’d been very careful while Trent was alive, not wanting the Sentinel to smell the scent of another Guide on him. He’d got used to keeping his distance, but that didn’t matter now. Of course he smelled of other Guides; he lived with three.

Mikey grabbed his hand and squeezed it instead, and then Gerard held out his hand for a handshake and said, “It’s good to finally meet you.”

If Pete had been cautious about being around Mikey, he’d been twice as wary of Gerard. A Sentinel could pick up another Sentinel’s scent days later. “You too,” he said, taking Gerard’s hand.

“I guess we can’t keep you from your work for too long,” Mikey said with a hint of reluctance. 

“Maybe,” Pete said. “I am supposed to get half an hour for lunch, and I need to change. Um, you want to come up with me?”

He led Mikey and Gerard into the apartment complex and stopped by Jon’s room on the way. Jon answered the door with a cup of coffee in one hand, and Pete couldn’t help but notice the way Mikey and Gerard’s eyes were drawn to it like magnets.

“Hey,” said Jon.

“Jon,” Pete said. “Oh my God. Um. My friends have come to visit.” He turned a little bit so Jon could see Mikey and Gerard behind him. 

“Hey,” Jon repeated, lifting his coffee cup in salute. Pete could tell he was kind of surprised from the way his eyebrows lifted, but Jon was a pretty laid back kind of guy. “I’m Jon.”

“Yeah, um, this is Gerard and Mikey...”

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Jon said, while Pete tried to hold in the urge to kick him in the shin.

“Jon, can you please, _please_ do something for me? I’m supposed to sit with Mr Stillman while he has dialysis in thirty minutes, and...”

“Say no more,” Jon said, smiling. “I can do that.”

“Thanks. I owe you, like, a dozen by now, probably.”

“Go have lunch, Pete.”

Pete led Mikey and Gerard up to the apartment and changed his shirt. Gerard seemed much more comfortable once Pete had dropped the stained shirt in his room and shut the door. Mikey ambushed him as soon as he came out of the bedroom and administered the hug he’d held back from giving downstairs, refusing to let go until Pete could hardly breathe.

Pete offered them both coffee and tried to think what he could give them for lunch. He usually made himself a sandwich, but there was nothing to put on it except cheese and wilted lettuce, and Pete was slightly embarrassed to offer something so paltry. Hoping for the best, he cooked a pot of ramen.

“This is nice,” Mikey said generously, looking around the room. Pete followed his gaze, trying to imagine what the apartment looked like to someone who didn’t live there. Without the other three Guides crowding up the space, he supposed it wasn’t so bad.

“It’s alright,” said Pete. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

“We wanted it to be a surprise,” Mikey said. “Did it work?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you standing there.” Mikey laughed, and Pete added, “How was your meeting with Susan?”

“Oh, fine.”

A thought struck Pete. “Hey, is it true they’re trying to shut down G-TAC dorms, get Guides into individual housing?”

“Uh, not that I’ve heard. Our meeting with Susan was about, well – about coming up with some regulations to handle abusive Sentinels.” Mikey wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. Pete wondered if Mikey and Gerard were pursuing that agenda for his benefit. Probably not.

“I thought you guys were staying out of the politics stuff now,” Pete said.

“We’re being discreet. Susan’s doing all the public stuff, she’s just asking us for suggestions. It’s kind of boring, to be honest.”

“Oh.” Pete nodded. “Well – are you still doing the music?”

Mikey grinned and pulled a walkman out of the pocket of his hoodie. 

Sometime in between songs, Gerard said he was going out for a smoke and left the apartment. Pete felt himself relax almost imperceptibly once the Sentinel was gone. It was silly; he knew Gerard was alright, but he couldn’t let his guard down around him. Mikey played the last song on the tape and put the walkman away when it was over.

“Are you doing okay, Pete?” Mikey asked quietly. Pete had heard that question a lot of times – too many, really, since Trent’s death – but this was the first time he felt like giving an honest answer. He did the safest thing, and kept his mouth shut.

Mikey bumped their shoulders together. “I was so pissed off when you said they’d come and picked you up a day early. I didn’t think I’d get to see you again.”

“Yeah,” said Pete. “I was pretty mad about that too.”

He went quiet then, and Mikey waited a minute or two before he hesitantly said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Pete wished he could say no, but that would have been a lie. “He was hit by a car,” he said, because he hadn’t even managed to tell Mikey the barest details of what had happened. “Went into a zone in the middle of the street, and just...”

“I’m sorry,” Mikey said, a hint of question in his voice, like he wasn’t sure he should say it. Like he was asking Pete’s permission to be sorry.

“I should have done something,” Pete said. 

“You did everything you could,” Mikey said, and it was so precisely wrong that Pete could only shake his head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I could have pushed him out of the way,” Pete forced out. “I chose not to.”

“You couldn’t have had time.”

“I _did_!” Pete snapped, and hot tears burned his eyes. He was crying because Mikey didn’t want to hear what a terrible person he was. That was pretty fucking stupid. “I saw the car coming, I should have saved him, but I didn’t.”

“You had no obligation to put yourself at risk to save him. It was him or you.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Pete retorted. He was working himself up into an impressively foul mood, and it wasn’t until Mikey grabbed his arms and shook them that he realised his friend was just as pissed off.

“He was _killing_ you,” Mikey said fiercely, “and I don’t care that he’s dead. I don’t care what you did. I just don’t.”

Pete was too startled to speak for a few seconds. “It wasn’t that bad,” he managed at last, but it was such a weak lie that Mikey didn’t even bother to respond to it. “What am I supposed to do?” Pete wondered. “Maybe you don’t care that I just let him die, but I can’t... I can’t trust myself. I chose Trent, and then I.... What am I going to do next, huh?”

Mikey had a hunted look on his face, like he knew he didn’t have an answer and was refusing to admit it. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he said, like he had every intention of making it so through sheer force of will. It was nice, but not exactly reassuring. Mikey didn’t actually have superpowers. Pete was on his own.

“Yeah,” Pete agreed. “It’ll be okay. I’m fine.” That got him an incredulous look, but what did Mikey want from him? To be fine for real, probably, and not just say that he was. But Pete couldn’t do that.

Mikey hugged him again before he left. This time, Pete was the one reluctant to let go, but he tried not to show it. He didn’t want to worry Mikey anymore. 

The day seemed a little bit colder once Mikey was gone.

***

It had been a long time since Pete had slept in a room by himself. Even after Trent’s death, he’d imagined that he could still feel the Sentinel’s presence. Then there was Edward – he had a way of filling up space. But he’d come around that evening and collected most of his possessions, and now he was with Julia so they could begin the bonding process.

Pete had told Sharon and Linda that he was going to enjoy it while it lasted. A new Guide would be along soon enough, and in the meantime he could stay up as late and snore as loudly as he wanted. He could write lyrics for hours without anyone wanting to know what he was doing. He could have as many nightmares as he liked. (He would have settled for none, but that didn’t seem to be an option.) At least no one would wake up and start worrying about him in the middle of the night. 

Pete had one pill left, and he told himself that he should save it for a night when he didn’t have the room to himself, but it was too hard to fall asleep without it. The room was too quiet. His breathing was too loud. Even after he took the pill, he didn’t sleep all that restfully.

The next day would have been long even with a good night’s sleep. He hadn’t thought that a couple more Sentinels would be that many to deal with, but it left him with almost no time to think. That was kind of good, actually. He ate meals on the run and learned to fill in his paperwork with his right hand and hold a Sentinel’s hand with the other.

He saw Edward and Julia that evening. He looked blissfully happy. They both did. It looked like they might work out. Pete felt something tighten in his chest, a feeling he couldn’t identify. Envy. Worry. A bit of both, maybe.

That night he was out of pills. He was tired from the night before, but he still tossed and turned for at least two hours before he finally drifted off to sleep. He woke up a few times from vague, nonsensical dreams that he forgot as soon as he awoke. He finally went into a deeper sleep sometime before dawn and dreamed that he was taking a test he hadn’t studied for. Such an ordinary, unremarkable dream, but when he looked at the test paper he realised it was a list of all his flaws, and he couldn’t remember them all. He was going to fail, and that would be another one for the list, but it was already so long...

When Pete woke up from that dream, he gave up on the whole sleep idea and got out of bed. It was almost morning anyway. He made a pot of coffee, extra strong, and swept the kitchen floor since he didn’t want to wake Linda and Sharon by running the shower.

Jon was due to leave that morning, and busy as he was, Pete made sure to stop by his room to say goodbye before he did anything else.

Jon’s bags were stacked by the door. He was straightening the cushions on the couch. Without his belongings scattered around, the apartment looked barren, and so clean it seemed almost sterile.

“Hey,” said Pete, trying to sound upbeat.

Jon grinned at him. “Hey, Pete. Does it look okay?” He gestured to the apartment, and Pete held in a snort because there was nothing out of place.

“Whoever moves in here had better keep it just like this,” Pete joked. “Not mess it up with their, you know. Food. And clothes.”

Jon smiled, although it was a pretty weak joke. Pete didn’t really feel up to being actually funny.

“I’d better get downstairs,” said Jon. “The taxi will be here to take me to the airport.”

“I’ll help you carry everything,” Pete offered. There wasn’t too much for one person to carry, but Pete was pretty sure Jon wasn’t supposed to be putting too much weight on his leg, so he tried to take the heaviest-looking things. The look Jon gave him suggested that he knew what Pete was doing.

“Good luck with everything,” Pete said as they walked. “I hope this Ross guy is alright.” That made him feel worse, because what if he wasn’t? Pete would probably never know, either way. He realised they’d never actually exchanged email addresses, and it didn’t matter anyway because he wasn’t going to be able to send any more emails. He’d already explained that to Mikey, but he hadn’t had time to check if Mikey had replied and now he’d never know. He tried to shake the selfish thoughts out of his head.

“I’m going to be fine,” said Jon. Pete nodded. “You, too.” Pete nodded again, less surely this time. They reached the taxi, and Jon loaded the bags into the trunk.

“Listen,” said Jon, “you should talk to Sharon and Linda more. Edward, too. They want...” 

Pete blinked, and waited. Jon frowned. “They want you to be okay,” he finished at last. “And... yeah. So, just... remember that, okay?”

Pete nodded again, mostly because he hoped it would make Jon stop looking at him like that. He started to put his arms up, and then second guessed himself. Were they friends who hugged? Or not? But Jon seemed to have no such reservations and hugged him tight for at least a minute.

And then, far too suddenly, he was gone.

***

Julia was the one to tell G-TAC about the bonding, Pete learned when he talked to Edward later that day. It was what he’d expected; if G-TAC was going to be unhappy about the news, well, they wouldn’t take their displeasure out on a Sentinel. So the first time Pete learned how Nagel and Ridley had taken the news was when they turned up with a new Guide.

He was younger than Pete, younger than Linda even, and waved at them from the door like he didn’t care that Nagel could see him.

“This is Luis,” Nagel said without ceremony, shoving the kid through the door. “For God’s sake, try to hang onto this one for a while, huh? I’m sick of fixing up your messes.” He glared around the room and they all avoided his gaze. “Timesheets!” he barked. “Well? We trekked all the way out here for nothing, the least you could do is hand over your paperwork.”

They all jumped into action; over his shoulder, Pete could see Luis dividing his glances between the two caseworkers and studying the apartment. He brought his timesheets to Ridley who accepted them with a stiff nod. He seemed unhappy, but whether it was because of the unscheduled trip he’d had to make, or for some other reason, Pete couldn’t say.

Ridley and Nagel left, and Pete showed Luis to the bedroom. He pointed out the closet and started to explain which side the shirts should go on, and that they all had to face the same way, and Luis said, “Oh, sure, just like in training. No problem.”

Pete nodded sharply and made to leave the room, but he stopped when Luis asked, “The caseworker guy said the Guide who was here before me bonded? Is that right? To one of the patients, he said.”

“Yeah,” Pete answered. “That’s right.”

“Does that happen a lot? They seemed kind of pissed off by it, so I thought maybe not, but...” 

Something about Luis’s tone rubbed Pete the wrong way. He seemed eager, almost. Far too keen and enthusiastic to suit Pete. “No,” he said. “It’s not usual, from what I’ve heard. Most of the Sentinels don’t stay for all that long. The ones who do, they’ve got more on their mind than bonding, most of the time.”

Luis seemed to deflate a little at this, but he said, “Yeah, that makes sense.” He was obviously disappointed, which made Pete feel guilty, maybe because, despite what he’d said, he had managed to build up a sort of friendship with Patrick, hadn’t he? He wasn’t being totally honest with Luis. But when he looked at the kid’s open, hopeful face, he couldn’t make himself say anything else.

Over dinner, they talked about how to divide up the Sentinels now there were four of them again. It was something Pete hadn’t considered, and in the moment he had to scramble to decide who to hand off. He told Luis he could take care of Evan, and avoided Linda’s gaze. The Sentinels she’d passed to him when he’d first arrived had all been perfectly nice. He was sure she’d do the same for Luis, and he knew she had a few assholes to deal with too. He just wasn’t that good a person.

What was she trying to protect Luis for anyway? It wouldn’t do him much good a few months or a year from now, when his assignment here ended and they sent him off to care for a Sentinel by himself. Pete hardened his heart. Luis would be fine.

***

Pete had felt guilty enough about Evan that he’d also given Luis Terri as well, who’d never been any trouble at all. He showed Luis where to find his Sentinels and gave him a few tips for dealing with Evan, and hustled off to Patrick’s room as soon as he could.

Patrick had already made coffee when Pete arrived, and he offered Pete a cup with a proud grin. Pete accepted in the vain hope that coffee might make up for lack of sleep, and said, “What can I get you for breakfast?”

“I’m pretty sure I can pour a bowl of cereal for myself,” Patrick said wryly. “Come on, Pete. I know you’re only supposed to help me if I need it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have time to sleep.”

Pete hadn’t really been expecting to be called out on the fact that he was giving Patrick special treatment – had been for weeks now, if he was to be honest. He flushed and bit his lip, trying to think of a way to deflect the suggestion Patrick was making.

“I just thought you might want something a bit better than cold cereal,” he said as casually as he could. “But if not, then hey, that’s your business.” 

Patrick gave him a look as though to say that he wasn’t fooled, and pulled a bowl out of a cupboard. “Your friend Jon came to talk to me, the day before he left,” he said, as he was pouring the cereal in.

“What?” Pete said, startled. “He what? Why?”

“He said he’d just been reassigned, and he said you’d been using his computer to email some friends.”

Pete’s breath caught as he started to panic. Why had Jon said that? What was Patrick going to do about it? It wasn’t like using the internet was explicitly against the rules, but Pete knew from experience that that wouldn’t stop G-TAC from making an issue of it.

The initial spike of panic subsided and Pete realised that Patrick hadn’t stopped talking. He tried to focus on the Sentinel’s face and figure out what he was saying, but Patrick went quiet and the only impression Pete was left with was that he’d just been asked a question.

“Huh?” Pete replied eloquently.

“I said, you can use mine. I mean, since Jon’s gone, do you want to use my computer? He said he’d email you.”

“No, thanks,” Pete said tersely. No, no no no. He wasn’t going to fall for that. It would be like giving the fox the keys to the henhouse, or some other phrase his grandmother used to say. 

“Well, your choice,” Patrick said, although he sounded – disappointed? “But if you change your mind, the offer stands.”

“Thanks, though,” Pete repeated quickly, wishing now that he’d phrased his refusal a bit more delicately. He didn’t want to upset Patrick. He should have just made an excuse for why he couldn’t just now, and then hopefully Patrick would have forgotten about it, but now the damage was done.

“Pete, um...” Patrick said, and his tone suggested that he was broaching some new topic, and one that he wasn’t eager to bring up. “I hope that everything’s okay?”

“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, Jon mentioned that you were, um, having a hard time with some, uh, stuff.”

Jon again. If Pete saw him again, which he wouldn’t, he’d be pretty tempted to punch the other man in the face. 

“And you’ve really been there for me since I got here, so I want you to know that – if you need to talk or whatever...”

Everyone wanted him to talk. What for? What good would it do? Oh, this was payback, wasn’t it, for all the times he’d tried to cheer Patrick up. Poetic justice.

He smiled, although he was sure it looked more like a grimace, and said, “I’m fine, but thanks anyway. And I’m running late now, so... I’ll be back this evening.”

It was probably only because of what Patrick had said that Pete noticed the way Linda and Sharon kept looking at him. Constant anxious and concerned glances that they seemed to think he couldn’t see. Maybe he wouldn’t have noticed them if Patrick’s questions hadn’t made him more self-conscious than usual.

“What?” he demanded irritably the fifth time or so he caught them at it.

Linda said, “Nothing,” but Sharon, being Sharon, said, “Jon said we needed to keep an eye on you, so that’s what we’re doing.”

“Sharon,” Linda hissed, “I don’t think we were supposed to tell him that.”

Pete groaned loudly and said, “Not you too! I’m _fine_.” Sharon and Linda looked doubtful, and Pete huffed indignantly. Linda opened her mouth, probably to say something kind and supportive, and Pete knew he was being a dick, but he walked out of the apartment without a word.

He ended up at Patrick’s door, of course. “Hey. Hey! Feel like dinner?” he asked, and Patrick let him in. Pete diced chicken for a stirfry while Patrick painstakingly sliced vegetables, and if he was still going by the time Pete had the chicken cooked, neither of them said anything about it.

“Do you really not mind if I use the computer?” Pete asked suspiciously, taking advantage of Patrick’s preoccupation to ask while his guard was down.

“Of course not,” Patrick said, glaring at a carrot. “Why are these stupid things so round?”

“Are you sure? I don’t think I’m supposed to, you know,” said Pete.

“Uh-huh.”

Of course, Pete’s clever ploy wasn’t going to work if Patrick wasn’t actually listening at all. “G-TAC would probably be hugely pissed off if they found out,” he said. “I’d be in trouble. Maybe you’d be in trouble too.” Not fucking likely, Sentinels were untouchable as far as G-TAC was concerned. But something seemed to penetrate Patrick’s head, anyway, because he looked at Pete and frowned, seeming lost for words.

“Pete-” Patrick began, then stopped, licked his lips, and said, “I don’t-” He stopped again and shook his head. “If you’re worried I’ll rat you out or something, well, I won’t. I don’t care what you use the computer for. I’m not trying to – to spy on you, or whatever you think. Maybe it’s breaking a rule or something, but I don’t really care. It’s up to you. Don’t use it, if you don’t want.” He moved to chop the last piece of carrot, and the knife twisted, sending half the carrot flying across the room. “Fuck.” Patrick dropped the knife in the sink and pushed the chopping board over to Pete before going to retrieve the stray vegetable.

Once the vegetables were cooking, Pete looked over to the computer desk in the corner and Patrick waved at him.

“Go on,” he said. “I can keep an eye on this.” And when Pete hesitated and was about to decline again, Patrick put his hand to Pete’s shoulder and turned him towards the desk, gently pushing him that way. Not a shove, not at all; in fact all the scrutiny Pete had been under made him suspect that Patrick was being overly careful with him. “Go,” Patrick said, and finally Pete let himself do as Patrick said.

There was an email from Mikey, like he’d thought there would be, but there were two others as well. He opened the most recent one.

 _Hey Pete, this is Ray. You know, Mikey’s friend. We were talking about your friend Patrick – oh, I don’t really know of anything that could help him, I’m sorry – but Mikey said we should maybe get in touch, so he gave me your email address. So, you know, email me. If you want. We can talk about whatever. Anyway I have to go, Frank and I are seeing a movie tonight, but you can call anytime._ And then there was a phone number, and the email ended.

Pete frowned at the screen and opened the next email, which was from Jon.

_Hi Pete,  
I guess it’s possible that you’re slightly annoyed with me right now. Which I understand. But I didn’t like the idea of leaving you without anyone to talk to, and Mikey was worried about you as well. So, I’d say I’m sorry, but... it’s more that I’m sorry for not being sorry. So yeah.  
I’m settled in at Fort Lewis. The weather here stinks. I hope you’re doing okay. Let me know how Edward and Julia are getting on? And everyone else?  
Don’t be a stranger,  
Jon_

Pete narrowed his eyes at the email from Mikey, and now that he was looking he noticed that the subject line read: ‘Admit it you would have done the same thing.’

 _Pete,  
I hate the idea that you might think I betrayed your trust, but what you told me on the weekend frightened me. No, not that thing. The other stuff. When you said you couldn’t trust yourself and you weren’t sure what you were going to do. I’d never forgive myself if I ignored something like that and then... well. Anyway.  
I didn’t tell Jon what you told me, okay? I didn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already guessed for himself. He wants to help you, and he seems, you know, decent and stuff. Maybe if you don’t want to talk to me you’ll talk to him instead.   
Jon said he was going to get some of the other Guides over there to keep an eye on you too. I said you probably wouldn’t want a lot of people hovering around, and he said that’s what Guides do when one of us is going through something bad. I guess I haven’t been around enough other Guides to... anyway that’s not important. I’m trusting Jon to find Guides who can be trusted, so, well, he better not fuck that up.  
I asked Ray to get in touch with you too. I know I don’t... I can’t really understand everything you’re going through, but if you want to talk to Ray about it, he’ll listen. And stuff. We don’t want to bother you or crowd you, the ball’s in your court Pete, but we’re all here. I hope there’s one of us you can talk to if you need to.  
Mikey _

Pete read the email twice and wondered how much of a basket case he’d seemed to make Mikey so worried about him. How screwed up must he appear to everyone around him, to have them all so worried? Was he really as fucked up as all that?

He probably was, Pete decided after thinking about it for a few minutes. He always had been really, but he’d actually got worse since Trent’s death, which made no sense at all. It wasn’t just that he felt guilty about letting Trent die, although he did. It wasn’t just that he felt scared and miserable all the time, because that was nothing new. It was that he couldn’t control himself anymore.

Couldn’t sleep through the night. Couldn’t hear a loud sudden noise without jumping out of his skin. Some days he was pretty sure he only managed to get out of bed because he knew he had no choice. He needed the damn pills just to get through the night, through the day, but they were all gone and he couldn’t get more. And he was worrying everyone around him, because they wanted to help but there was nothing they could do.

He couldn’t just continue to fake being okay any more. Couldn’t tell Mikey or anyone else how bad things actually were, either. They’d panic, probably go to his caseworker behind his back. They wouldn’t want to, but what else could they do? And then it would all be out of his control. Pete had to move first.

Ridley wasn’t so bad, anyway. Not for a G-TAC caseworker. He might listen, might try to help. Pete twisted the hem of his shirt and realised his palms were sweaty, and his heart was racing. He didn’t want to talk to Ridley, but he had to. And it would probably be okay.

Over in the kitchen, he heard bowls clattering, and Patrick called out, “Hey, Pete, you want some of this?”

Pete wiped his hands on his pants and got up to help. He spent the whole meal unusually quiet, and after they’d washed up he went back to send a quick reply to Jon.

_I can’t say I didn’t freak out a bit when I realised you’d talked to Patrick, but so far so good. You don’t have to worry about me, though, I’m fine. Mikey’s just a worrywart.  
We don’t get to see much of Edward now, of course, but whenever I run into him he always seems blissfully happy. The lucky bastard. Nothing much has changed here otherwise.  
I hope you’re okay up there in Washington state. Hope that Ross guy isn’t too much of a dick. Or at least is nice to look at, lol.  
Pete_

He thought about replying to Mikey, but after five minutes of staring at the screen and not writing a single word, he gave up.


	6. Chapter 6

Ridley turned up the next night to collect timesheets, which was good. Having made up his mind to talk to the caseworker, Pete wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. He handed over his paperwork and waited for Ridley to check it over, waited with his hands sweating, trying not to breathe too fast.

Ridley seemed to be in a sour mood, which wasn’t good. He probably just wanted to go home and put his feet up, not stand around listening to Pete whine. But Pete had no choice; he couldn’t wait.

“Uh,” Pete said hesitantly, “sir?”

“Yeah,” Ridley said, putting the paperwork into his briefcase. Pete didn’t answer straight away; he hadn’t quite figured out what to say and Ridley’s tone hadn’t been encouraging. “ _What_ , Guide?” Ridley demanded. “Get on with it.”

“I-” He’d had an idea of how he was going to start, but now, faced with Ridley’s irritated, impatient face, he couldn’t remember any of it. “Um... I...”

Ridley’s face went slightly red. “Do you have a point, or are you just trying to waste my time?” he snapped.

“Uh, I don’t want to... um, waste your time...”

“Well?”

Pete gave up. “It’s nothing. Sorry, sir. Never mind.”

Ridley scowled and left the apartment in a bit of a huff, and Pete felt exponentially worse. He wasn’t going to find any help that way, that was clear. He’d have to figure it out on his own.

The next day Pete passed Viv doing her medication run again, and he paused to watch. She unlocked the storage cupboard and brought out the trolley, locked the cupboard again and went on her way. Pete wondered how long doing the rounds would take her. He was pretty sure it would be at least twenty minutes. He’d only need two. He’d have more than enough time.

She’d have to give meds again in the afternoon, he knew. Four o’clock every day, on the dot. He’d be ready.

***

Pete planned out the rest of his day so that he had a reason to be around the med storage cupboard at four. He hovered in the doorway of the room opposite, where he couldn’t be seen, and pretended to fold towels until Viv walked up the corridor and unlocked the cupboard.

Pete waited until she was inside and slipped across the hallway. He glanced left and right; no one was looking at him. He took a roll of scotch tape from his pocket and stuck it firmly across the latch. He pressed the ends down, hoping that they wouldn’t catch Viv’s eye when she came out, and then walked away briskly when he heard Viv moving around inside the room.

She came out, and Pete tried to listen. Would she see the tape? Would she notice that the lock didn’t catch properly? He heard her shut the door. So far so good. She put the key in the lock. And then – nothing. Pete wanted to turn back, but he knew he couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything that might make Viv notice him.

“Jana in 220 just threw up everywhere,” Pete heard. It was Cathy, one of the younger nurses. “She needs some help to get changed.”

“Wow,” Viv said, barking a short laugh. “You’re on your own, though, I’ve got meds to give.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cathy said, walking away. 

Pete heard the keys rattle; was Viv putting them back in her pocket? Had she locked the door? He wished he could see. And then, he heard the sweet, sweet sound of the medication trolley rolling away, and wanted to weep with relief.

It took a few minutes before the hallway was clear enough to suit him. No one was paying him much attention, but he waited until the area was deserted before he went over to the storage cupboard. 

The tape had held; the door opened easily at a touch. Pete checked the corridor again and slipped through the door, pulling it closed behind him. He fumbled for the light switch and blinked as the room lit up.

The shelves were a lot fuller than he’d been expecting. He picked one at random and started rifling through bottles and packets. If there was some system to the organisation, he didn’t know what it was. It seemed random to him. His heart started to race. This would take longer than he’d thought, and that meant a higher chance of being caught. He tried to go faster, but after a few seconds he realised he was only skimming the labels and not reading them properly, and had to go back in case he’d missed something.

He _had_ missed something, as it turned out. There was a bottle of Valium that he’d only glanced at for half a second, and from the weight it was nearly full. He stuffed it into his pocket and glanced around the shelves again. He could keep looking, try to build up a bit of a stockpile, but he didn’t want to take the chance.

This was the riskiest part of the whole operation. He couldn’t see through the door, and there was a chance someone was standing just on the other side of it. He pressed an ear to the wood and listened as hard as he could. It was quiet, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be standing up the other end of the corridor. He had no choice, though, he couldn’t just stand there and wait for Viv to come back. He opened the door a crack and peered out.

No one was looking his way. It would have to do. He opened the door a little wider, peeled off the tape, and stepped out fast, closing it behind him in one movement. He heard the lock catch and stepped away from the door, making sure not to move too fast, not to look guilty. He glanced back when he reached the corner.

Nothing. The hallway was all but deserted. No one seemed to have noticed him. Pete tapped the bottle in his pocket to make sure it was still there, then jerked his hand away. He’d gotten away with it.

***

Jon had replied to Pete’s email.

_Ryan Ross is made of elbows. And the parts of him that aren’t elbows are dick. He’s like, 60% elbows and 40% dick. Or maybe the other way around. I dunno, fuck it, let’s talk about something else.  
I’m so relieved that it’s been going okay with Patrick. I mean it’s not that I was worried about him or anything, it was just good to hear from you.   
It’s a nice change to be able to get back to work. Ross is the historian for his unit, which I didn’t think was something they let Sentinels do, but... well, anyway. Means I’m mostly helping him with paperwork, but at least it’s something to do. And you get a lot of inside gossip about things that are happening on base. It’s sort of fun.  
What’s your news this week?_

Pete wrote a reply, although he didn’t have much to say. He talked about a funny prank some of the patients had played on a new nurse, and how she’d got them back by typing up a fake menu the next day, and once he’d finished he had nothing to distract himself from the idea that he should probably email Mikey. He stared at the blinking cursor for a few minutes with no idea where to start, and eventually he closed that window and started an email to Ray instead.

_Hi, Ray. I didn’t know Mikey was going to ask you to email me. I mean, I hope it’s not a problem. I’m not sure what Mikey said, but he’s probably blown everything way out of proportion. But anyway.  
You play awesome guitar, I love the music you guys write. What movie did you see?  
Pete_

He’d just closed the window and was about to shut the computer down when he heard Patrick swear and drop something on the other side of the room. He’d been adding photos to an album, something his physiotherapist had apparently suggested he do, or so Patrick had told Pete when he’d offered to help. Pete turned around at the noise to see photos scattered across the rug.

“Fuck!” Patrick snapped, and he tossed the album across the room. Pete got the impression he would have liked to throw it through a window, but he seemed to rein himself in and instead just sent it sliding across the floor until it bumped into the wall. It made Pete jump anyway.

“Is everything okay?” Pete asked carefully when it became clear that Patrick wasn’t going to move or speak. He was slumped on the couch with his hand over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No,” Patrick said. He took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he added, kind of short, like he actually wanted to yell but knew he shouldn’t.

Pete wondered whether it would piss Patrick off more if he offered to help, or if he didn’t. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, because it seemed like the safest option.

“No,” said Patrick. “No. Don’t – it’s fine. Not your problem. It’s not like you’re my therapist or something.”

Which struck Pete as a weird thing to say, because in his experience, being a Guide was a bit like that. At least, it was if his Sentinel decided it was. ‘Or something’ could cover just about anything when it came to a Guide’s job description.

“Well, if your therapist were here, what would they say?” Pete asked lightly. “Just imagine something really wise and pretend I said it, and bam! Successful Guiding.”

That actually got Patrick to laugh a little bit, and Pete felt pretty impressed with himself. “She likes to say that anger is a secondary emotion, and there’s usually another emotion underneath it,” Patrick said. “Like fear, or disappointment, or sadness. And it would totally make sense for me to feel any of those things, but I can’t tell. I just feel angry.”

Well, it was nice that Patrick had taken him at his word and shared a bit of what he was feeling, but it still left Pete in the awkward position of not knowing what to say. “That sucks,” he said, on the theory that making reassuring noises was probably better than being silent.

“I’m never going to be able to forget,” Patrick said. “I think I’d try, if I had the option. I’d just go on with my life and pretend that none of it had ever happened. But...” He tapped his prosthesis on the table. “I’m going to be reminded every day, and that...”

“Makes you mad?”

“Guess so.” Patrick looked up at him, the wry smile on his lips melting away to a solemn expression. “Sorry about before. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“You didn’t,” Pete said automatically. Shit, he thought, Patrick had noticed that? Of course he had. Fucking Sentinels.

Patrick had that expression on his face that he wore when he was about to do something new and difficult with his prosthetic hand. “I just... I’d never hurt you. You know that, right?”

Pete just sort of gaped at him, too stunned to come up with an answer. After a second, he decided he was glad not to have replied, because what he really wanted to say was ‘I don’t believe you.’ Or, better yet, flat out call Patrick a liar. And sure he didn’t really think Patrick meant what he was saying, but he wasn’t exactly dying to put it to the test.

Patrick looked sincere, and after a few seconds puzzled, and a few seconds after that, sad. “Hey,” he said, “can you bring me that album again? I should probably try to do a bit more.”

***

In a corner of the closet, down where Pete kept his shoes, the carpet wasn’t properly tacked down, and when Pete lifted it up he realised it was because there was a gap in the floorboards there. The result was a little hole, one inch deep and two inches long. It wasn’t big enough for the pill bottle, so Pete tipped the pills into a bag and threw the bottle away in a trash can on the other side of the medical centre. He tried to use the pills sparingly. The longer he could make them last, the less likely he was to be caught.

After a few days of being able to keep the pills hidden and use them without incident, it was a very unpleasant surprise to come into the apartment one evening and find Ridley and Nagel inside, and the entire living room turned upside down.

Luis was there already, but Sharon and Linda were still out. Luis nearly pounced on him when he came through the door.

“Pete,” he muttered, looking sideways to the caseworkers.

“Inspection time?” Pete asked in an undertone. Although it looked like a bit more than a usual inspection. They’d pulled all the cushions off the couch last time, but this time they’d actually pulled the couch away from the wall.

“They said they’re looking for...”

But before Luis could finish, Ridley noticed him and walked across the room. “Pete,” he said. “Empty your pockets.”

“Why?” Pete asked without thinking. Seeing Ridley’s scowl, he quickly turned his pockets out to show they were empty, and added, “What’s going on, sir?”

Ridley seemed to accept that there was nothing in his pockets and patted Pete down. “We got a call from one of the wards,” he said. “Their medication inventory was off. Can you shed any light on that?”

Pete’s heart rate soared. Lucky the caseworkers weren’t Sentinels, or they’d instantly know what he’d done. Pete hoped his face wasn’t revealing anything. He considered saying something, but couldn’t decide what, and in the end Ridley turned away after a couple of seconds anyway, saying “Keep out of our way until we’re finished searching.”

They couldn’t really suspect him, then. They were just going through the motions of searching. Pete felt so profoundly relieved that he wanted to sink to the floor, but he couldn’t do anything as revealing as that.

Ridley pulled all the plates out of the cupboards, and Nagel ripped the sheets off the beds. At some point, Linda and Sharon came in together and Luis quietly explained what was happening. Pete didn’t take too much notice because Nagel was going through the closet, and he didn’t think he could speak without freaking out. 

Nagel pulled the last hangers out of the closet, dumped them on the ground and turned away. He took a step away, stopped, frowned. Turned back. Pete wanted to be sick. Nagel knelt down on the ground and started pulling out shoes. Not that there were many – between he and Luis, there were two pairs of dress shoes and two pairs of tennis shoes, Pete had flip flops and Luis had slippers. Nagel checked inside every shoe.

Sharon made a quiet comment to Pete and he tried to grunt a reassuring reply even though he had no idea what she’d actually said. She huffed a little bit and he guessed that he’d missed the mark somewhat, but he couldn’t care about that, not when Nagel was inches away from finding his hiding place.

Nagel pulled the last shoes out of the closet. He looked around. Pete wondered whether he should say something. Something to provoke Nagel and distract him. It could backfire, though, and he couldn’t think of the right thing to say. He kept quiet.

Nagel turned away. He turned away and pushed the closet door back, although it stuck on the pile of clothes and didn’t close. Pete tried to look calm, normal. Not like he’d just had the worst scare of his entire life.

“Good evening, ladies,” he said smarmily. “I’m sure the boys have filled you in. Some medication has been stolen, and we’re doing a search. What’s in your pockets?” And he patted down Sharon, and then Linda, seeming to take a longer time over it than he really needed to.

Ridley had been searching Sharon and Linda’s room while this was going on, and came out saying: “Nothing here. Do you think we’re done?”

“Thank Christ,” Nagel said. “Let’s get out of here.” He stopped at the door and turned back to say, “If any of you hear anything about those drugs, you make sure to tell us. The hospital is very keen to know where they went.”

Once the door closed behind them, Pete couldn’t really keep up the pretence of being okay. His breath had been fast and shallow before and now accelerated almost to the point of hyperventilation. Linda patted his arm, her face concerned, and Pete both wanted to cling to her and push her hand away. She wouldn’t want to comfort him if she knew the truth. She’d be furious.

“I can’t believe this!” Sharon ranted, gesturing at the trashed apartment. “I had a long day, this is the last thing I need.” She grabbed two mugs from the kitchen table and slammed them back into the cupboard with a heavy sigh.

“It’s okay, Pete,” said Linda. “They’re gone, and I’m sure the medication will turn up somewhere else.”

“I hope they find whoever took them and... and...” Sharon said, apparently unable to think of anything bad enough. “Did you see the look that little weasel gave me when he went through my drawers? His mother should have taught him better manners.”

None of this helped Pete to calm down at all, and Linda got him to sit down on the couch, although she had to wait for Luis to retrieve a cushion first. “What’s wrong, Pete?” she asked kindly.

Pete just shook his head, and she patted his hand. “I know they’re horrible, and the apartment’s a mess, but it’s not that bad.”

“Speak for yourself, Linda,” Sharon snapped. “Cleaning this up will take hours.”

“Sharon,” Linda hissed, “I really don’t think you’re helping.” She looked back at Pete and appeared to compose herself. “They were just throwing their weight around a bit. It happens. They have to know none of us took the drugs.” 

The reactions Pete had been holding in couldn’t be contained anymore, and he jerked. He hoped that Linda hadn’t noticed, but when he chanced a look at her face he could tell she had.

“Oh, Pete,” said Linda sadly.

“What?” Sharon asked, coming over to the couch. “What? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“What is it?” Luis asked. “What’s happened?”

“Where are they?” Sharon demanded. “Pete, you’ll tell me right now if you don’t want my foot right up your...”

“Sharon, let me handle this,” said Linda. Sharon subsided, much to Pete’s relief, and Linda took Pete’s chin in a grasp that was firm but not tight.

“Where are they hidden?” she asked, meeting Pete’s eyes and not letting him look away. Maybe she wasn’t the softer option after all.

Sharon retrieved the pills from the closet when Pete pointed out the hiding spot. She flushed them immediately, and the only reason Pete didn’t protest and beg her not to was that he was preoccupied by shaking and trying to breathe.

“Are there any more?” Linda asked, and Pete shook his head. “Do you mean it, Pete, because this really isn’t something any of us need to go through again.”

“No,” Pete gasped. “No, n-not any more. Sorry. Sorry about...”

“Okay. Just take a breath, relax,” said Linda, patting his arm. Pete did his best, but his shaking was out of control. “You’ve got to calm down, Pete. How do you normally deal with this?”

Pete didn’t bother to answer that, just gave Linda a withering look. She seemed to interpret it correctly and her shoulders slumped. “God. What a mess.”

***

After that, Pete knew beyond a doubt he’d be getting no sleep that night. He wasn’t wrong. At eleven pm, he didn’t feel tired in the slightest. At half-past midnight, his eyes felt sore and scratchy, but closing them took a force of will and lying down made his skin feel like it was going to itch off.

Linda sat up with him. Pete thought he’d have liked to kiss her, if he’d liked girls. They sat on the couch and watched reruns of MASH. Linda dozed a couple of times, made cocoa, and refolded everything Nagel had tipped out of her dresser.

“I’m sorry,” Pete repeated for the sixteenth time.

“No one blames you, Pete.”

Pete wasn’t sure about that. “It’s my fault. The apartment. And Nagel searching everyone. I was only thinking about myself, not anyone else.”

“That you think that’s the worst part of this whole screwed up situation just goes to show how messed up you are,” said Linda.

“But Nagel...”

“You think that’s the first time a G-TAC worker felt me up?” Linda asked. “Nagel did that because he’s an asshole. Nothing to do with you, Pete.” Linda’s voice was closed off and Pete was glad to let the subject drop.

He slept after a while, or at least he woke up from a nightmare. It wasn’t as bad as some of them had been, but it was disorienting. Linda made more cocoa and sat with him until just after four, when she went to bed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep, and Sharon came out.

“Have you slept at all?” she asked, clucking her tongue when Pete shrugged. She made coffee and fried eggs while Pete buttered toast.

Pete was being very quiet around Sharon because, whatever Linda had said, Pete didn’t really believe she wasn’t harbouring any anger towards him. She was surprisingly kind, though, and made him a second cup of coffee without even asking first.

“Do you need any help with your Sentinels today?” she asked.

“I dunno...” said Pete.

“Because we can get Luis to help you. He’s young, he’ll have the energy.”

Pete couldn’t help laughing. Sharon attributed a great many qualities to youth, boundless energy being one of the foremost.

“I don’t know,” he said again. The thought of the day’s work ahead of him on barely any sleep tied his stomach in knots, but the possibility of G-TAC finding out he wasn’t keeping up with his workload was no less disconcerting. He couldn’t decide how to answer Sharon, and tapped with his fingers on the edge of the table.

“Well, just let us know if you do,” Sharon said.

Pete nodded. Decision delayed, good. “Sure.”

He went to work. Joseph needed help washing. Alice needed breakfast made, a challenging task when she couldn’t tolerate anything with a hint of flavour. He sat with Mr Stillman for dialysis, which was a nice chance to sit still, but gave him too much time to think about all the work he had still to do and how long it would take. And how many things he could possibly screw up.

Patrick had physio after that, and it was a tough session. Dr Samuels had come up with a different prosthesis for him – well, really, it was more like a casting sock with a guitar pick stuck to the end of it. Pete could appreciate Patrick’s problem. It was his best option for playing guitar, but it made his stump look like nothing so much as, well – a stump. 

Aaron tried to get him to try it on; Patrick refused. Aaron pushed him through a series of other, more challenging exercises. Pete tried to keep Patrick’s spirits up, but his heart wasn’t in it and Patrick had never really responded well to that sort of thing anyway.

Aaron ended the session a little bit early; perhaps he’d taken note of Patrick’s barely contained frustration.

“Keep an eye on him,” Aaron said to Pete. “His mood is very low. It would make a big difference to his recovery if we can bring him out of it a little.”

Pete went to one of his other Sentinels, feeling even more burdened. It was worse, now that he’d come to care about Patrick. He wanted Patrick to feel better, but he couldn’t give Patrick what would make him happy – _no one_ could. He didn’t want to sit by helplessly and watch Patrick fade away.

He wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that anyway, Pete realised. Patrick wouldn’t be staying at Walter Reed forever. Not unless he got a lot worse. He’d be discharged and waste away in his home, watched over by a Guide assigned by G-TAC. The idea made Pete scowl. Or, maybe, Patrick would need to stay. Need treatment for mental health, or have some unforeseen problem with his arm. And then G-TAC would realise what a poor job Pete had been doing here, and they’d pull him and give him some other, worse task.

How could he possibly make Patrick happier? Pete was so inadequate to this task it wasn’t even funny. 

At five he left the hospital ward like he usually did, and went to quickly check up on the Sentinels living in the apartments before he went to spend the bulk of the evening with Patrick. At least, that was the plan.

Alice was having sensory spikes, and it took Pete over an hour to figure out that she’d just had a refill on her medication, and the pharmacist had given her a generic instead of the brand she’d been prescribed. He couldn’t leave her to go and pick up the replacement she needed, and he had to wait for someone to bring it over. He sat with Alice where she was huddled over the toilet in the bathroom, and tried to get her to dial her sense of taste down. It was a problem, because the combined taste of puke and minty toothpaste seemed to have her in some kind of infinite vomit loop. It was incredibly disgusting, but Pete still thought he would have handled it okay if she hadn’t been overwhelmed by everything and started to cry.

Pete didn’t really know what to do. This had never been an issue with Trent; when he’d been sick or uncomfortable he’d tended to yell or throw things. He patted Alice on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m here.” Yeah, and _useless_. He had no idea what to do, and to his horror his breathing was becoming a little agitated and his eyes were prickling. This was fucking Guiding 101; if the Guide started to panic the Sentinel would panic. He tried to take some deep breaths, but the bathroom didn’t smell so great and he regretted it. Pete coughed and Alice was crying so hard it made her vomit again.

By the time the pharmacy tech arrived with Alice’s medication, they were both in a terrible state. Pete had actually begun to wish Alice would just zone so he could have a moment to collect himself, but of course he wasn’t that lucky. The poor tech had to stick around for twenty minutes until they’d both calmed down and Alice had managed to keep down the anti-nausea medication and drunk a glass of water. Pete felt horribly guilty about leaving Alice after that, but she seemed much better and not interested in doing anything but going to bed. He made sure she had aspirin and water within reach, that her white noise generator was playing and the curtains were closed, and went to Patrick’s room.

It was nearly nine o’clock. He was so late, and Patrick was going to be so mad. That almost made him want to go back and hide in his own room. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what Patrick would do, it was just that he didn’t want Patrick to be disappointed, and he was kind of angry at himself for giving another person that kind of power over him again. But he had to go, or G-TAC would have something to say about it.

Patrick didn’t answer his knock straight away, and Pete spent five anxious minutes knocking and calling out and wondering whether or not to let himself in. Patrick finally opened the door, to Pete’s relief. The kitchen was a mess, with pasta scattered over the floor and a tomato sort of eviscerated on the counter. 

Patrick didn’t say anything or even really look at Pete when he opened the door. He made his way back to the couch and slumped down on it like his body had suddenly become too heavy to hold up. 

“Hey. Um. What happened here?” Pete asked, although he regretted it instantly, because he knew the answer was ‘you were late and left me to fend for myself when I needed you more than ever and you suck.’

It took Patrick a long time to reply. “Tried to make dinner,” he said. He looked down and sighed. “Fucked it up.”

God, he sounded so much like Pete, which was horrible because Patrick was awesome and didn’t deserve to feel like that. “I’m sorry,” Pete said. “I should have been here to help.”

“But you weren’t, and so what? I don’t need you.” His voice held so much anger and frustration. Pete kind of cringed away from him. He was way too tired for this, he didn’t have the energy to comfort Patrick who was now digging his fingers into his knee and muttering, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” over and over.

He should go over to Patrick anyway. He should do his damn job, go to Patrick and pat his shoulder. Say something soothing. But he couldn’t move. He thought that was just melodramatic self-pity, but then he tried to take a step and wobbled on his feet and had to lean against the wall. His hands were shaking and he could feel a hysterical sound bubbling up in his throat, so he stuck some fingers in his mouth and bit down. 

He must still be making some noise, or Patrick was more alert than he appeared, because he looked over and regarded Pete for a minute or so.

“Pete?” he asked. “Pete? What’s wrong?”

Pete pulled his hand away and tried to say ‘I’m fine.’ He needed to convince Patrick he was fine. He needed to be fine, goddamn. He just had to pull himself together. But instead he sobbed and clutched the wall and slumped down to the floor because his legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore.

Patrick got up from the couch and walked over to Pete. “Did something happen?” he asked, and his voice was losing the flat quality it had had before. He was sounding more concerned, and he sat down next to Pete on the floor.

Nothing had happened. It had just been a normal day. Pete had absolutely no reason to be so upset, but he couldn’t calm down. His panic was overlaid by white hot fury at himself for not being able to deal better.

Patrick said, “Uh...” and put his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Should I...?” Patrick asked, but he didn’t finish the question and Pete wouldn’t have been able to answer it anyway. He leaned into Patrick who awkwardly put his arm around Pete’s shoulders and patted his back. “Okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” He didn’t sound at all convinced that it was. Pete thought that it was just like earlier, with Alice, but with the roles reversed. His Sentinel wasn’t supposed to have to do that for him. No, Patrick wasn’t even his. But he just didn’t care.

“Do you know why I’ve been so down?” Patrick asked, much later when Pete had stopped shaking and was slumped against Patrick’s side too exhausted to move. He shook his head. “I got my discharge papers today.”

Pete mumbled, “Uh-huh?”

“I’m officially a civilian now. Medical discharge, with full pension.” Patrick was staring fixedly at the spot where the counter met the floor. Pete nudged him, tried to get him to focus.

“That’s not... bad? Is it?” Pete asked uncertainly.

Patrick shrugged. “No,” he said. “But it means... I have to figure out who I am now. And I don’t think I like me very much.”

“You’re still you,” Pete said, touching two fingers to Patrick’s prosthetic hand. Patrick frowned and moved the prosthesis away.

“I’m not talking about that,” he said. “It’s... there’s plenty of soldiers with artificial limbs, I could have... that wasn’t the main reason for the discharge. It was the PTSD.”

“Oh,” Pete said. He wasn’t sure what to say, because he knew he was in no position to give Patrick a pep talk about managing his mental health.

“Do you know – see, they thought I might be dangerous,” Patrick said, and before Pete could be all outraged on his behalf, he added in a rush, “well, I mean, because... before I came here. I had this friend, and in a flashback, I attacked him. Tried to strangle him.”

Pete must have looked more horrified than he’d intended to, because Patrick quickly added, “He’s fine now! He still sends letters. But they decided I was too much of a liability or whatever. You can’t blame them. So I’m just saying that... I’ve turned into this other person. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do things for myself. And sometimes I don’t even know _what_ I’m doing. I’ve turned into this stranger who hurts people and can’t pull his own weight. I don’t like it and I can’t change it.”

Pete opened his mouth and closed it again. When Patrick stated his feelings flat out like that, there was little enough Pete could say to change his mind. And then Patrick said, “You’ve seen me at my worst, Pete. Whatever you tell me, I won’t laugh or say it doesn’t matter.”

Oh. “It’s nothing,” Pete said, more out of habit than because he actually thought Patrick would believe him.

“It was a hell of a panic attack you had just now,” Patrick said. Pete would have been embarrassed to have that pointed out, but he supposed it was true, what Patrick had said. He shrugged. Patrick had seen what he’d seen.

“Do you take anything for them?” Patrick asked.

“Nah.”

“Maybe... you should?” Patrick suggested gently. Pete didn’t mean to, but a snort burst out of him which he tried to cover up.

“What?” Patrick asked.

“Nothing,” Pete said. “Nothing. No, that’s good. A good idea. I’ll. Yeah.” He couldn’t promise to look into it. Not truthfully.

Patrick looked more concerned, though, not less. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked. “If you don’t want to take medication for it, you could still look into some other therapy. Couldn’t you?” he asked, when Pete didn’t answer straight away.

“Yeah,” said Pete. “With G-TAC’s say-so.”

“Well, yeah,” said Patrick. He looked at Pete. “Would that be a problem? Do you think they’d – I dunno, not let you seek treatment?”

“They might,” Pete allowed. “But maybe they wouldn’t. They might... they’d decide what treatment, and whether it was working or not and whether to continue with it. And afterwards...” He remembered who he was talking to, and clammed up. 

Patrick gave him a look. “Once they knew, they’d always know, and always be thinking about that when they decided anything to do with you.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Pete said, relieved that Patrick understood. Of course he did.

“But then...” Patrick said slowly, “what are you going to do?”


	7. Chapter 7

Pete got back to the apartment very late. Linda and Sharon were already in bed, but Luis was sitting up in bed reading, and came out into the living room when he heard Pete come in.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re really late.”

“Yeah,” said Pete, and he described the situation with Alice which had delayed him.

“You should have got one of us to come help you,” Luis said. “Sharon said we could help if you needed someone.”

“Oh,” said Pete. It had honestly never occurred to him to do that. And Sharon had offered help, he remembered that now, and still he’d never considered it.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

Pete hadn’t, after everything, so Luis reheated some leftover chilli. After the first bite Pete realised how ravenously hungry he actually was, and he wolfed the rest down while Luis sat and watched. At first Pete was preoccupied by his meal, but after a few minutes Luis’s attention struck him as odd.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Luis said, flushing and looking away. “Just. Sharon said I had to keep an eye on you.”

Pete bet she had. “I’m fine,” he said wearily. Lying so much probably wasn’t healthy.

“Linda said...” Luis trailed off and looked guilty. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to... be nosy or whatever. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t say the wrong thing. I. Um...”

“Just ask, Luis,” Pete sighed.

“Linda said you were bonded?” Luis said, and it wasn’t really a question even though he made it sound like one. Pete nodded anyway. “And she said the Sentinel was a jerk.” Pete nodded again. “And that’s why...” Luis didn’t finish that sentence, so he apparently wasn’t quite tactless enough to say ‘that’s why you’ve been behaving like a deranged nutcase.’ Score one for Luis.

“What’s your question?” Pete prompted eventually, because they’d come this far and he figured they might as well get the discussion out of the way.

“I don’t – I wondered.” Luis stopped, took a breath and started again. “Why did you bond with him?”

Somehow, that wasn’t what Pete had expected. “Uh,” he said. “Well... he asked me.” Luis just looked at him, and Pete figured it was kind of a weak answer. “It was the first time I’d been asked, and I wanted to bond,” he added, because he didn’t really want to get into the specifics with Luis. The kid had to be barely out of Guide training, he was so fucking naive.

“But...” Luis looked like he was struggling with something. Pete waited. “But... why couldn’t you wait, and bond with someone else? I mean – I’m sorry. I guess maybe he was probably different then.”

“He wasn’t,” said Pete. At the time, he honestly hadn’t expected anyone else to ever ask him. He hadn’t really expected _Trent_ to ask him, so when he had, Pete had said yes without thinking about it. And he didn’t want to describe the intense calculations he’d done afterwards, of whether it would be better to be bonded to Trent permanently or stick out four more years in the Navy, probably more. “I just thought... it would work out.” He’d thought he’d be able to handle it, was what he’d thought. And he had. Sort of. “It’s easy to convince yourself something will work out if you really want it to.”

Luis looked incredibly crestfallen. Pete must not have done as well at protecting his innocence as he’d wanted, but it was probably for the best anyway. “Come on,” said Pete. “It’s late, and I so need some sleep.”

***

He did okay, slept for over four hours before he woke up. He got up then, slightly shaky and still kind of tired, to drink coffee, watch the shopping channel and scribble fragmentary, nonsensical lyrics which he threw straight in the trash without rereading. At half past four, he went back to bed and tried to sleep a little bit more, but without much success. All he managed to do was make himself bleary-eyed and stupid when he actually had to get up for the day.

It was better than yesterday. Anything would have been better than yesterday. He got to Patrick’s apartment that night without incident, helped Patrick cook something and checked his email.

Jon had replied, just funny stories from Fort Lewis and small talk, but it was nice to read. Ray had written back too. _‘If anyone tries to tell you that you should go see the Blues Brothers sequel,’_ he said, _‘they are lying, and not to be trusted.’_

Pete read both emails twice, trying to look extremely absorbed in the computer, because Patrick was using his new prosthesis to play the guitar and he didn’t want to make him self-conscious about it. He listened, though, and it sounded like it was working really well, Patrick playing without getting tired and with only the occasional awkward pause between chords. Pete smiled to himself and refreshed his inbox.

There was nothing from Mikey. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he was letting Pete make the first move, making sure that Pete was okay with being contacted. Maybe he’d finally realised that there were ten thousand better uses for his time than worrying about Pete. 

He tried five times to write a light-hearted email which would reassure Mikey that everything was fine, but something kept holding him back and eventually he figured it out.

 _It’s not up to you to save me from myself, Mikey. Whatever I keep fucking up is on me, not you. I think it’s just how I am, or something._ He wanted to add more, but he couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t make Mikey worry even more, so he sent the email, feeling like it wasn’t really finished. 

It had become difficult to focus on writing the email because at some point, Patrick had progressed from playing quietly to humming along and finally singing the chorus of the Ramones song he was playing at full volume. Pete listened, rapt, until Patrick looked up and saw him watching, and stopped playing abruptly.

“You shouldn’t have stopped, man!” Pete said. “You’re good!”

Patrick was already turning red. Pete had no idea what someone as talented as Patrick could have to be embarrassed about, but he tried to reassure him. “Seriously,” he said. “I told you you should try singing, your voice is great!”

Patrick shrugged and looked away. “Oh, knock it off, Pete,” he grumbled.

“But-”

“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something,” said Patrick, and he sounded serious enough that it distracted Pete from trying to convince Patrick he could sing.

“What?”

“Uh,” Patrick said. “So. I’m probably going to. I mean. I think I’m going to be discharged in a week or so. My shrink’s been talking to me about it. And my ortho.”

Oh. “Oh,” said Pete. He winced; his ‘oh’ had sounded decidedly flat. “Hey, that’s great!” he said, trying to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll probably go home,” Patrick said. “To my parents’ place, I mean. My mom’s kind of insisting.” He made a face, like he wasn’t completely looking forward to it.

“Well,” Pete said, trying to think of something supportive to say, “I guess you’ll have a chance to figure some stuff out, then.”

“Yeah,” said Patrick without enthusiasm.

“And you’d better take care of yourself.”

Patrick looked down at his knees, and Pete’s stomach did a sort of swoop. Oh no.

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about something, sort of related to that,” said Patrick. “Um. Well. I feel like we... we are... we work well together, and stuff. And. So, I don’t see why we couldn’t... I’d like to have you come with me, if. If you want. If we could...”

“Could what?”

“Well, bond.” Patrick met Pete’s eyes and looked away, so quickly that he really might have missed it if he’d blinked. “Do you... um. Would you? Want that?”

Pete twitched and sprang up from the couch as though it had turned into an ant hill underneath him. He really should have tried to find a tactful way to refuse, but instead he said “No!” in a hoarse sort of cry. And then, because just like he’d pointed out to Mikey, Pete just couldn’t seem to avoid ruining his own life, he added, “Why would you ask me that?”

Patrick looked kind of affronted, and he said, “I thought you – you’d want – I mean, I guess I was wrong.” He shook his head. “But I thought it would work better for you – you could get into therapy, I wouldn’t interfere. Hell, my therapist could probably recommend someone. It just seemed like a good...” He trailed off and looked down at his hands; he’d developed a habit of wrapping his real hand around the prosthesis, like the urge to poke at a scratch, maybe, or perhaps to keep it hidden. 

Oh no, no way. Nothing on earth could convince Pete to agree to something like that. He’d be in Patrick’s debt for the rest of his life, unable to repay him or leave. Maybe he’d made some stupid decisions in the past but at least, please God, he could learn from them.

“I’m never going to bond again,” he said fiercely. “Not with you, not with anyone. I don’t want that.” And he was shaking again, and his vision was tunnelling until all he could see was Patrick’s disappointed face, and no matter how hard he breathed there wasn’t enough air. “I don’t want that. No. No.”

Patrick reached out like he was going to touch Pete, and Pete sprinted for the door. He didn’t think running away from Patrick was likely to fix anything, but he’d never really had the chance to try it before. It was worth a shot.

***

Pete shut the door to his room like he could close out the world, but he couldn’t shut out the conversation Linda and Sharon were having out in the kitchen. They were being quiet, to be fair, but the walls were thin and when Pete thought he overheard his name he went to the door to listen.

“We can’t do that,” Linda was saying. “Just imagine what they’d do.”

“This is too much for us, Linda. None of us is getting any sleep and he’s not getting better. Of course I don’t like to suggest it, but we can’t keep this up long term. _Pete_ can’t keep this up long term. I think we should...”

And she dropped her voice even lower. There was nothing more Pete could hear except Linda saying, “ _No,_ Sharon!” He backed away from the door and sat on his bed.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but after a while Luis came in and stared at him. “Should I get...” he asked, taking a step back towards the kitchen.

Pete shook his head hard and Luis stopped, gulped, and closed the door. “Uh,” he said, “Should I do something?”

Pete gave a harsh laugh. “I’m not gonna explode,” he said.

Luis didn’t look reassured. “I know that,” he said. Christ. The kid was as fidgety as anything. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as tentatively as someone trying to pull a book from the bottom of a stack without toppling it over. 

Pete considered telling Luis the truth. If Jon were still around, he’d probably have gone to talk to him. Or Mikey. Too bad they were both only contactable through Patrick’s computer. There was Linda, too, he might have talked to her once, but right now he didn’t want to give her any more evidence of how fucked up he was. “Bad day,” he said. Luis licked his lips and nodded. 

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked. Pete had a feeling Luis had recently been on the receiving end of a talk from Linda about How To Be A Supportive Friend.

“Nah,” he said, “I’m fine.”

Luis looked indecently relieved, and it sort of made Pete want to laugh. Only sort of, though; he wasn’t really in a laughing mood.

He would have avoided Patrick, maybe asked one of the other Guides to look after him instead if it hadn’t suddenly seemed very important to appear competent and capable. But it did, and so the next morning he got in and out of Patrick’s apartment as quickly as possible, trying to avoid eye contact the whole time. Patrick, for his part, didn’t mention anything that had happened the day before, which Pete knew he should be relieved by. He knew his initial fear – of being bonded to another Trent – was irrational, but that didn’t mean that bonding with Patrick would be any less of a bad idea, done for the wrong reasons.

He went back that evening, meaning to do the same thing, get in and out while minimising contact. Patrick looked so miserable, though, and was clearly being so careful about not saying anything to upset Pete, that he relented and said, “Hey, anything worth watching on TV tonight?”

Patrick brightened up so much it gave Pete a bit of a rush. Making a Sentinel happy was an addictive feeling. There wasn’t anything on TV that he wanted to see, but he stuck around anyway, just because Patrick seemed so happy.

After an hour or so of watching TV, Pete went to use the computer and found that Mikey had sent him a chat message. 

mikey: Pete are you there?

wentzp: hey mikey

mikey: I got your email, I’m glad you’re ok

wentzp: yeah, im doing good

mikey: I want to come out and visit again this weekend. Is that ok?

Pete stared at the screen for a minute or two. What should he say? Did he even want Mikey to come back and visit? He hardly needed another witness for his probably inevitable breakdown. On the other hand, if he could see Mikey in person, he’d be able to discuss the Patrick Situation with him.

wentzp: i guess

mikey: I don’t have to if you don’t want, I just thought it might be good.

wentzp: no yeah it would be good

mikey: Okay. I was thinking Saturday, what’s a good time for you?

They figured out the details and Pete signed off.

***

Saturday was a warm day, a first taste of the coming summer. Pete had talked to the other Guides who had arranged things so he could have some time with Mikey. He’d be up late paying back the favours, but that didn’t matter.

At twelve o’clock exactly, Pete was waiting outside the building where Mikey had found him last time. Mikey, however, was ten minutes late. Not his fault, Pete was sure. It was a long way, and the roads could be fickle.

Mikey jumped out of his car and raced over. Pete hugged him hello and said, “Want to come upstairs?”

Mikey looked around. “Is there somewhere we can take a walk?”

They wandered through the grounds, which Pete hadn’t really seen much of. It was pretty. They stopped at a bench which had a nice view of a pond and sat down. Pete licked his lips, suddenly unsure of what to say.

“Uh,” he said. “Thanks. For coming out.”

Mikey smiled at him, but it was a thin sort of smile. “I wanted to come,” he said. He looked down and toyed with a rip in his jeans. He dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt nervously. Yes, he was nervous. Surely he couldn’t be about to say what Pete thought he was about to say?

“I’ve been emailing Patrick,” Mikey said. Oh. Not what he’d been thinking at all, then. Pete was relieved. Yes, definitely relieved. “He said he asked you to bond.”

“Everyone’s been talking to Patrick,” Pete said rather resentfully.

Mikey looked guilty, but he set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and continued on. “He said you said no.” He waited, and when Pete said nothing, added, “So?”

“You’d know better than me,” Pete said. “Apparently.”

Mikey sighed. “Are you sure that’s the right decision?”

“You tell me,” Pete said snarkily.

“Damn it, Pete!”

“No, seriously,” Pete added. “I don’t... I can’t decide something like that. I’ll get it wrong. It’s what I do.”

“That’s ridiculous, Pete. I think you’re overreacting.”

Pete opened his mouth, but the prospect of explaining to Mikey that it wasn’t just one crap decision, but every decision he’d made since he was thirteen or so, before he’d even known he was a Guide, was just too much. He could review all the different ways his life had become a clusterfuck and trace each one back to his own choices. It was pretty depressing, though, so he usually didn’t.

Pete closed his mouth again. “Am not.”

Mikey shrugged and sighed again. “Would it be so awful, to bond with him?”

“Of course not,” Pete said. “Not at first.” Mikey just gave him a blank look, and it was Pete’s turn to sigh. “He wants to fix me, Mikey. ‘Let’s bond, Pete,’ he said, ‘you can have all the therapy you want.’ He wants to, fucking, _rescue_ me, and for a month, maybe two, he’ll be happy with that. He’ll feel just like when he was a special forces soldier, saving people and kicking asses and shit. Then it’ll wear off, he’ll realise that I’m just a fuckup – like, independent of all this bullshit,” he waved his hands to indicate the medical centre, “I’m still a fuckup. And I don’t get better. And he’ll be stuck with me. Forever. And it won’t be special and happy anymore, and he’ll resent me for ruining it. And we’ll be stuck together. Forever.”

Mikey was looking at him like Pete’s impromptu monologue had been delivered in a language he didn’t speak. Pete supposed it sort of had. He should have said it to Ray, who, he’d gathered, had a few fuckups of his own. Ray could have translated it into normal-person-speech. Never mind.

Mikey pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think you’re wrong,” he said slowly, like it was an effort.

“Prove it,” Pete retorted, because he wasn’t about to put his faith in hopes and wishes, not again.

Mikey closed his eyes. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s leave that for now. I’ve been emailing Patrick.”

“You mentioned that,” said Pete. “It’s funny how you’re so keen to make sure I’m informed all of a sudden.”

“ _And we agreed_ ,” Mikey snapped, “that it would be better if I talked to you first.”

Pete dropped his head and breathed hard through his nose. “Talked to me about?” he growled.

“Patrick made a request to G-TAC, that you be assigned as his Guide once he’s discharged.”

Pete turned away, shaking his head. He should have been expecting that, but somehow it had taken him by surprise. “Fuck you, Mikey.”

“I thought you didn’t want to decide anything?”

Pete moved to walk off, but he only got a couple of steps before he felt Mikey’s hand on his arm. He shook it off angrily. 

“I’m sorry,” Mikey said, although he sounded more pissed than sorry. “It’s shitty, and if there was another way... but we only had so much time, and it seemed like the best choice.”

Oh, yeah, Pete knew how _that_ went, alright. “I don’t need your help,” he said.

Mikey was kind and didn’t call him out on that enormous lie. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess... I guess I should go. Stop bothering you.” He didn’t move for a couple of seconds, like he was waiting for Pete to stop him, and then he started to walk away.

“Mikey, wait.” Pete caught up to him. “What did Patrick say?” 

Mikey looked at him. “He said you... he said you’re ‘the only person in this hole that doesn’t make him feel like a freak.’ His exact words. It’s not... he needs you too, Pete. You both – I think Patrick hopes you can help each other.”

“I’m not someone who helps people, Mikey.”

“Pete-”

“What if he has a flashback and I don’t know what to do? Or I can’t... you know how Sentinels and Guides feed off each others’ emotions. If it was one of us, we could cope, but we’re both so messed up – what if we make each other worse?”

Mikey didn’t answer, which Pete took to mean he didn’t know either. Pete sighed.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it better for you,” Mikey said in a small voice, and guilt left Pete feeling about three inches tall.

“It’s fine, Mikey,” he said. “It’s good. I’m just. Just scared, I guess.” 

Mikey nodded. Pete could see him trying to understand, but Mikey seemed to have that sense about people that all Guides were supposed to have. He probably had no idea what it was like to have to work so hard at getting along with people.

“Hey, Mikey?” Pete asked after a few minutes of walking. “Do you think, if I’m Patrick’s Guide, will he want to fuck?”

Mikey tripped and nearly fell. He looked surprised, so Pete figured Patrick hadn’t made any comments along those lines.

“Would you... want to?” Mikey asked.

“Well, I – I mean, if it. I don’t know. Do you think it would help?”

“Pete-” Mikey pressed his lips together, looking annoyed. “I thought you guys were friends.”

“We are.”

“He shouldn’t coerce you into things you don’t want to do if he’s actually your friend.” Mikey looked pissed. 

“He wouldn’t!” Pete said. He was pretty sure Patrick wouldn’t, anyway. “I was just wondering. Most Sentinels want a Guide who’ll, you know. Be available for that.” Mikey probably didn’t really get that, being sibling bonded.

“If he makes you feel like you’re obliged to have sex with him, I’ll break his face,” Mikey said. He looked like he meant it, too, which was hilarious because Patrick was an (ex-)Special Forces soldier whereas Mikey had been known to take a space heater into the shower because it was too cold.

“You can’t do that,” Pete said. He was laughing a little bit, but he tried to answer Mikey seriously just in case he thought he could make good on the threat. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is,” Mikey disagreed. “I thought – I mean, if that’s what you want, then that’s great! But I kind of thought. I sort of – it seemed like-”

Mikey went quiet, and his expression was thoughtful and a little sad. Pete blinked at him, because even with all the times he’d imagined this moment he’d still managed to somehow be unprepared for it. 

That was probably why he reacted as impulsively as he did. It was one thing to convince himself that he could turn Mikey down when he was hours away in New York, but another when Mikey was right in front of him. So Pete grabbed Mikey’s wrist and kissed him, although his aim was a little off and he sort of got Mikey’s lower lip and a bit of his chin. It certainly had a noticeable effect, though.

Mikey stopped, turned, and stared at him. “What-?” he asked.

Shit. “Sorry,” said Pete. “Sorry, I – I must have read that wrong.” He looked away, his face burning. He should have known better. He _had_ known better, had just decided to ignore his own better judgement out of pure obstinate stupidity. 

“No,” Mikey said, sounding frustrated. “I just... come on, Pete. You ask me whether screwing Patrick is a good idea, and then you kiss me? What am I supposed to think?”

Pete hadn’t thought of it like that. “I thought you wanted me to,” he said in a small voice. 

“I – but. What do you want?” Mikey asked. When Pete just looked at him, he added, “Do you even know?”

“I want-” Pete started, then clamped his mouth shut before he could say something mortifying like, ‘I want you to like me.’ He wasn’t far gone enough to expose a weakness like that. 

They walked in silence for a few minutes, and then Mikey let his knuckles brush the back of Pete’s hand. “Pete,” he said, and waited till Pete looked at him. “When you figure it out, let me know?”

***

By the time he received an official notice that he’d been reassigned, Pete had sort of accepted it, even though he still half-expected it to turn into a disaster at some point. He still hadn’t decided how he was going to break the news to the other Guides when Linda seemed to notice his preoccupation and asked what was on his mind.

“Huh? Oh, nothing. It’s nothing,” Pete said, not very convincingly. His attention started to wander again, but he couldn’t miss the significant look that passed between Linda and Sharon. 

“Actually,” he said, “I need to tell you – well, Patrick approached G-TAC about them assigning me to him once he’s discharged. So I don’t think I’ll be here for much longer.”

The other Guides didn’t seem quite surprised enough. Had they known too? Did _everyone_ know what was happening in his life before he did? Probably. Pete couldn’t even work up any indignation about it; he’d used it all up on Mikey.

Whether or not they’d been plotting with Patrick behind his back, all the Guides seemed happy for him. The night before he left, Sharon sat down with him and handed over a disposable razor.

“Uh... thanks?”

“You dropped this in the bathroom. Thought you might want it.”

“Oh, right. Thanks,” Pete said, more sincerely this time. He got up to put the razor in his washbag, but Sharon stopped him.

“Pete, I wanted to say... good luck. I hope everything’s okay, with Patrick.”

“Oh, I – thanks. I mean, it will be.” Pete nodded, and Sharon sort of smiled at him.

When Pete was lying in bed that night, waiting to fall asleep, he heard Luis ask, “Pete? Pete, are you asleep?”

“What would you do if I said yes?” Pete asked, rather grumpily. He’d just been in that nice, dozy, half-asleep state. Judging by Luis’s silence, he had no answer for that, and after a few seconds Pete groaned and tried to wake himself up a bit.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You and Patrick haven’t bonded, have you?” Luis asked.

“No.”

“Do you think you will? Eventually?”

This was obviously something that had been keeping Luis awake, so Pete took a minute to really think about his answer. He wished he could come up with something better than, “I’m not sure.” Luis kept quiet, so Pete added, “It’s forever, you know? And last time I bonded, it turned out to be such a mistake, so...” His voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat and made himself admit, “I’m kind of scared.”

Luis asked, in an uncertain voice, “So... is it ever worth it?”

“Well...” Pete so wasn’t qualified to have this conversation. “I guess so. I know some bonded Guides that are really happy. Look at Edward.”

“But how did they find their Sentinels? How did they know it was the right one?”

Pete sighed. “If I knew that, kid, I’d sleep a lot better.” He peered at Luis’s bed, but it was too dark to make out more than a blurry shape. “You really want to bond, huh?”

“I thought I did,” said Luis in a small voice. “But so many of the Sentinels here are kind of... jerks. And I don’t want to pick... wrong.”

Like Pete had. “Being unbonded isn’t so bad,” he said, although he remembered hating it a lot at the time. Every new Sentinel had seemed to think they needed to whip him into shape, and he’d hated the Navy fiercely.

“You wish you hadn’t bonded, now?” Luis asked. Pete was still stumped by the question. Would he have been better off? He had no way of knowing, but it did nothing to take away his certainty that he’d made the wrong choice. “Pete?” Luis asked. “What do you wish someone had told you, back then?”

And somehow, that was a question Pete could answer. “To trust my gut,” he said at once. “I knew he was bad news, but I wanted to believe it would work out. When you see them at their worst, can you stand it if it’s always like that? It doesn’t matter if they’re usually a bucket of sunshine. What are their worst days like? Maybe that’s when you see... they’re actually a control freak, or they literally can’t comprehend ever being wrong about anything, or they think it’s funny to hurt people. Or maybe,” Pete paused and swallowed. “Maybe you’ll see that they’re just scared, or hurt, and they’ll still sit with you because they know you had a crappy day.”

“And that’s the one to bond with?”

“Huh?”

“The one who takes care of you even when they’re dealing with their own problems, that’s the one you should bond with?”

Pete straightened his blankets out to give himself time to think. “I don’t know, man,” he said at last. “You’ve got to make these decisions for yourself.”

In the morning, Pete tidied up the last of his belongings and stripped the sheets off the bed. Linda found him when he was returning from the laundry.

“Hey,” said Pete. “Um, it’s going to take an hour for the washing to finish, and I think I’ll be gone by then, sorry...”

“It’s fine, Pete, I figured,” Linda said. “We’ll take care of it.”

Pete nodded and kind of smiled, and Linda nodded, and it was so _awkward_ Pete wished he hadn’t already stripped his bed so he could go hide under the covers. But that was rather melodramatic, even for him, so Pete took a breath and said, “Look, Linda, I wanted to say... thanks for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without your help... all of you, really, but... I know it’s not enough, but I wanted to say thank you.”

“You don’t have to say anything, Pete. We take care of each other, that’s just... what we do.” And Pete could hear the unsaid, ‘because no one else will’, but he ignored it and just swallowed down another thank-you.

“Do you think you’ll be okay?” Linda asked hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. And like with Luis the night before, Pete had a practiced answer ready to go, but made himself try to say something sincere instead.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually, “but I think it might work out.”

Linda nodded and even seemed to stand a little bit straighter. She said, “Good,” and before Pete could walk away, she hugged him tightly.

“I’ll be fine,” Pete said quietly.

“Yes, you will,” she said.

***

They travelled to the airport by taxi. The flight was delayed, which Patrick didn’t seem too bothered by.

“Come on,” he said, “I was hoping we’d have time to look at this.”

“Look at what?” Pete asked, but Patrick was already on his way and Pete had to hurry to keep up. 

Patrick made his way to a cell phone store and Pete caught up with him there. Patrick held out a Nokia towards him with an expectant expression; Pete waited for a clue about what he wanted. 

“It’s nice,” Pete said, when a few seconds passed without Patrick explaining anything. “Don’t you have a cell already, though?”

“Yeah. I was thinking for you,” said Patrick.

“Oh! Right.” It made sense that Patrick would want to be able to contact him whenever he wanted, now he was Patrick’s Guide. He’d had a cell, with Trent, but he’d had to leave it behind. “That looks fine.”

“What colour do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Shit, it wasn’t like they charged more for the cool colours. “Red?”

Once they were on the plane, with Pete’s new phone in its box tucked safely in his carry-on luggage, Patrick said, “When we get home, I’ll call my cell company and get you added to my plan. It’s good, you get 1000 minutes of calls a month.”

“You think I’ll be calling you that much?” Pete asked, laughing.

“Well, I figure you’ll have some other people you want to call, too.”

Pete started and stared at Patrick, wide eyed. “What?” he said. “Um. Huh? Who?”

“Well...” Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Like Mikey. I thought it would be easier than emails.” He smiled uncertainly.

“I kissed Mikey,” Pete blurted out. 

Patrick’s smile dimmed. “Yeah,” he said. “Uh, yeah, I sort of figured.”

Pete just couldn’t figure Patrick out at all. “That doesn’t bother you?”

Patrick looked down at his hands. “I can’t – I can’t say I’m as cool with it as I’d like to be,” he said slowly. “But I’ll work on it. You should be able to date someone if you want to.”

“Yeah,” said Pete. “I thought that – I wondered if you’d want that to be you, that’s all.”

Patrick looked surprised. “Um,” he said. “I don’t really go for guys much.”

“Even Guides?” Pete asked.

“Well, Guides... but yeah, even then, I’m more into women.” Patrick sighed and fiddled with his left shirt cuff. “But honestly, I don’t think I’m really ready for anything like that. Probably won’t be for a long time.”

Pete stared down at his knees. This just raised a stack of new questions he wished he could have answered, but there wasn’t much privacy on the plane and Patrick was looking stressed. A lot of Sentinels hated flying. Pete put held out a hand and Patrick took it; they opened a working link and Patrick’s forehead smoothed.

Patrick reached for his bag and looked through it for a minute. He put it down with an annoyed grunt. “I put my book in my suitcase,” he grumbled.

Pete shifted and looked at the notebook sticking out of his bag. “Shit,” he said, “that sucks.” He put his hand on the notebook, started to lift it out of his bag, then pushed it back. “Maybe you can get a magazine or something.”

“Gosh, I was wondering if Drew Barrymore had got a new haircut,” said Patrick sarcastically.

“Okay then,” said Pete. His fingers reached for the notebook again, and he pulled it out and held it on his lap. 

He wished he could put it back, but Patrick looked over and said, “What’s that?”

“Uh.” Pete opened the notebook to a blank page and grabbed a pen. “Tic-tac-toe?”

Patrick gave him an odd look, but he took the pen and put a cross in the middle square.

After that, they moved on to hangman, and from there to drawing increasingly elaborate and grotesque hangmen. Patrick’s best seemed to be using a guitar to behead his victim, which Pete argued meant he wasn’t really a hangman at all, and by that time they could see Chicago out the window. It felt like the flight had lasted about twenty minutes.

Patrick stared down at the city, looking way more excited than he had when they took off. “I used to know a lot of musicians in this city,” he said. “I wonder if any of them are still around.” He bit his lip. “I wonder if any of them will remember me.” 

“Of course they will,” Pete said. Patrick looked at him.

“We should get you a bass guitar,” he said. “There used to be this awesome music shop not far from Mom and Dad’s house, they had the best range.” He glanced at Pete quickly. “I mean, if you’re okay with that,” he added hesitantly. 

“I’d like that,” Pete said, softly. He looked at his bag again. He wouldn’t show Patrick the lyrics he’d written. He’d write something else, something new, and give him that.

***

It was raining when they left the airport. A stiff blustery wind rattled the automatic doors as they slid open. Pete carried the luggage out to the car – a dark green station wagon – and loaded it into the back while a middle-aged woman hugged Patrick and kissed his cheeks no less than five times. Pete hung back in case she wanted to give him the same treatment, but she restrained herself to a handshake and a warm smile. 

It took an hour to drive to Patrick’s parents’ home. Patrick bickered with his mother about the fact that his bedroom had been turned into a guest room. Pete had a cot set up in the study. “We have dial-up,” said Patrick’s mother, “but Nathan needs the phone line free before eight pm.”

It was a pretty comfy set-up. Pete put his bag down by the desk and dropped his coat on top of it. He sat on the cot and stretched out on it. Then he got up again and went to see how Patrick was doing.

Patrick was sitting in his own room, the one that was now a guest room. It looked bland in the way that guest rooms tended to, and Pete tried to imagine what it would have looked like before Patrick had left home. Maybe he would have covered the walls with band posters like Pete had. Maybe he’d kept it neat and filled his shelves with debate team trophies. Maybe he’d only been able to reach the bed by carving a trail through layers of books and dirty clothes, like Lewis and Clark trying to get to Oregon.

Patrick’s guitar case was leaning up against the wall by the door. His mother walked by and picked it up.

“I’ll get this out of the way for you, honey,” she said. “And then do you want something to eat? What about some soup? Or a toasted sandwich?”

“Leave the guitar, it’s fine,” said Patrick.

“Oh, you don’t want it in here, cluttering things up,” his mother said. Rather than arguing, Patrick got up and took the guitar case from her. She sighed and let it go without comment. “What about some eggs? Maybe with toast?”

“Whatever you think,” Patrick said, and opened the guitar case. His mother wandered off with another sigh, and Pete moved into the room.

“How’s your guitar playing going?” Pete asked. Patrick kept his head down.

“Yeah,” he said after a second. “It, uh.” He looked up at Pete and bit his lip. “It’s been getting a lot better. The prosthesis is kind of weird, but I’m getting used to it.”

Pete smiled and Patrick switched his prosthetic hand over. He got the guitar settled on his knee and started to play. He was _good_. It made Pete itch to grab an instrument himself. He settled for listening, and, as he began to recognise the songs Patrick was playing, to sing along. He sang as badly and obnoxiously as he could, hoping that he could goad Patrick into singing and trying to drown him out. Patrick rolled his eyes, so maybe he could tell what Pete was up to, but after a few minutes he began to sing anyway.

***

Being in Chicago was strange – busy, but in a different way to the hospital. Pete saw a psychologist, and a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. Patrick bought him a bass guitar, even though the process of buying it was sort of an ordeal. They went to the store three times, and each time Pete convinced himself that letting Patrick spend that sort of money on him was a horrible idea and made a weak excuse for why they had to leave right then and there. The fourth time, Patrick withdrew the cash and gave it to Pete before they reached the store, and told Pete that he wouldn’t accept it back, whether Pete chose to spend it in the music store or not. That did the trick. 

Pete kept scraps of paper under his pillow, in his duffle bag, and in the case for his bass guitar. Slowly, he covered them with his messy, loopy writing. He might have deliberately scrawled a bit more than he normally would have, in the hope that other people who happened upon it wouldn’t be able to read it.

It took him a long time to write something he was willing to share with Patrick. It needed to be good, and not reveal anything he didn’t want to reveal. The more time passed, the more he almost felt he could make up his mind to trust Patrick, but he wasn’t there yet. Eventually, though, a day came when he took Patrick a page with a mostly finished song on it, and let him read it.

“This is _good_ , Pete!” Patrick said, something in his voice that Pete didn’t recognise.

“It’s not really done yet,” said Pete. “And I’m not sure the meter in the bridge works.”

“Oh, no, you could totally tweak that,” Patrick said, reaching for his guitar. “Just use a triplet here, and here...” He sang the line, and the rhythm was much more effective than the one Pete had been battling without success. He sat down next to Patrick on the bed.

“Okay,” said Pete. “What would you do with this line, then?”

Patrick’s mom called them for dinner an hour later, but they didn’t hear her.

***

A few weeks later, that song was finished and four more were well underway. Patrick was as happy as Pete had seen him, but he could see that Patrick was eager to do more with the music than they had so far.

“If I’d wanted to leave the Army to start a band, they probably wouldn’t have let me,” Patrick had said a few days before. “But now...” He held up his left arm. “The SRB doesn’t care what I do anymore, and I still can’t do what I want.”

“Sure you can,” Pete insisted. “Your playing keeps getting better and better. Your singing too. This doesn’t have to stop you.”

Patrick sighed. “I wish I was still in touch with the guys I played music with back in school,” he said. “Two musicians doesn’t quite make a band.”

“You don’t have any of their numbers?” Pete asked.

Patrick pursed his lips. “I’ll have to make a couple of calls,” he said.

An hour later, Patrick got off the phone with some guy called Andy, and said, “Well, he wants us to come around tomorrow to rehearse together, see how it goes. What do you think?”

“Sounds good.”

“He seemed really pleased to hear from me, actually. He said he’s got this tape I’ve got to hear, some anonymous group writing songs about Guides and opposing G-TAC.”

Pete did his best to hide his reaction. Could Gerard and Mikey’s music really have made it all the way to Chicago, copies of copies passed from one person to another? Maybe it was a different group.

“That sounds...” Pete said, and paused long enough while searching for an appropriate adjective that Patrick seemed to forget he’d spoken.

“It would be good to find another guitarist, I think,” he said. “In case we need someone who... well, in case we need one.”

“Yeah,” said Pete. “Do you know anyone?”

Patrick thought about it. “Just Joe,” he said, “and he’s got at least three months of enlistment left. But I could write to him, ask what his plans are after that.”

“Three months isn’t all that long,” said Pete.

Patrick smiled. “That’s true,” he said. “It gives us time to get a few songs written. If you want to keep writing lyrics.”

Pete breathed deep and gathered up his courage. “I’ve got more,” he said. “I have – I can show you. If you want.”

Patrick looked at him, keeping still like he thought he might frighten Pete away. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’d like that.”


End file.
